Having graduated as an archivist-palaeographer in 1901 with a thesis devoted to the House of Armagnac[1] then working as a member of the École française de Rome (1901–1903), Charles Samaran became an archivist at the Archives nationales.
[2] In 1908 he published Les diplômes originaux des Mérovingiens, "an extraordinary achievement by a young palaeographer who would remain until his old age an infallible decipherer of difficult texts",[3] a collection which played a key role in the study of Merovingian scriptures.
Critical literary studies and editions of texts from all periods (dispatches from Milanese ambassadors under Louis XI, Casanova's memoirs) followed, which would continue throughout his teaching (John Chartier, Thomas Basin, The Song of Roland in the literary field, acts of University of Paris in the pragmatic field).
As co-founder of the International Committee for Palaeography in 1953, founder of the Catalogue de Manuscrits datés[7] co-founder of the International Council on Archives,[8] a prolific author with several hundred titles in his personal bibliography, and active until his hundredth birthday, Charles Samaran was a major figure in twentieth-century archives, palaeography and scholarship, by his personal influence, his institutional activities and his wide range of written works.
A medal bearing the likeness of Charles Samaran at the age of seventy-six was executed by Aleth Guzman-Nageotte in 1955.