This collection consists primarily of the research materials used by Professor Ralph E. Giesey for his extensive research project, entitled Projet Fox. (The name was derived by Giesey from the southern French village Fox-Amphoux, in which he did much of his research work in the 1970s.)  

Projet Fox is a major examination of French medieval and early modern family inheritance and succession law. Giesey undertook the project with, as he admits, a highly polemical motive - he wishes to explore the role of hereditary plutocracy in our own times., and the project studies French heriditary transmission of great wealth with an eye to such wealth transfer in the modern day.

The collection contains Giesey's Project Bibliographical Files, which consist of many of the articles, reprints and other sources Giesey consulted in the course of the project, arranged alphabetically by author. Also contained are numerous Source Materials consisting of reproduced copies of French legal and historical treatises, as well as a Subject File consisting of handwritten notes and jottings from Giesey. The file is arranged alphabetically by subject.

The last box in the collection contains Giesey's typewritten transcription of the 1565 Latin text Franco-Gallia, by Francois Hotman, sieur de Villiers Saint Paul. Accompanying this manuscript is a photocopy of the Library of Congress copy of the book itself.