CHAPTER 1 - THE MEANING OF HISTORY, SOURCES OF HISTORICAL DATA, & HISTORICAL CRITICISMS

OVERVIEW
Lesson 1 introduces history as a discipline and as a narrative. It discusses the limitation of historical
knowledge, history as the subjective process of re-creation and historical method and historiography. Lesson 2
presents the sources of historical data, the written and non-written sources of history as well as the
differentiation of primary and secondary sources of information or data. Lesson 3 discusses historical
criticisms, namely, external and internal criticisms. These are important aspects in ascertaining the authenticity
and reliability of primary sources upon which narratives are crafted.

LESSON 1 - THE MEANING OF HISTORY

History is derived from the Greek word historia which means learning by inquiry. The Greek
philosopher, Aristotle, looked upon history as the systematic accounting of a set of natural phenomena, that is,
taking into consideration the chronological arrangement of the account. This explained that knowledge is
derived through conducting a process of scientific investigation of past events.
The word History is referred usually for accounts of phenomena, especially human affairs in
chronological order. These are theories constructed by historians in investigating history: the factual history
and the speculative history. Factual history presents readers the plain and basic information vis-à-vis the
events that took place (what), the time and date with which the events happened (when), the place with
which the events took place and the people that were involved (who). Speculative history on the other hand,
goes beyond facts because it is concerned about the reasons for which events happened (why), and the way
they happened (how). "It tries to speculate on the cause and effect of an event." (Cantal, Cardinal, Espino &
Galindo, 2014)
History deals with the study of past events. Individuals who write about history are called historians.
They seek to understand the present by examining what went before. They undertake arduous historical
research to come up with a meaningful and organized rebuilding of the past. But whose past are we talking
about? This is the basic questions that the historian needs to answer because this sets the purpose and
framework of a historical account. Hence, a salient feature of historical writing is the facility to give meaning
and impact value to the group of people about their past. The practice of historical writing is called
historiography, the traditional method in doing historical research that focus on gathering of documents from
different libraries and archives to form a pool of evidence needed in making a descriptive or analytical
narrative. The modern historical writing does not only include examination of documents but also the use of
research methods from related areas of study such as archeology and geography.

THE LIMITATION OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

The incompleteness of record has limited man’s knowledge of history. Most human affairs happen
without leaving any evidence or records of any kind, no artifacts, or if there are, no further evidence of the
human setting in which to place surviving artifacts. Although it may have happened, but the past has perished
forever with only occasional traces. The whole history of the past (called history-as-actuality) can be known to
a historian only through the surviving records (history-as-record), and most of history-as-record is only a tiny
part the whole phenomenon. Even the archeological and anthropological discoveries are only small parts
discovered from the total past.
Historians study the records or evidences that survived the time. They tell history from what they
understood a credible part of the record. However, their claims many remains variable as there can be
historical records that could be discovered, which may affirm on refute those that they have already
presented. This explains the “incompleteness” of the “object” that the historians study.
HISTORICAL AS THE SUBJECTIVE PROCESS OF RE-CREATION
From the incomplete evidence, historians strive to restore the total part of mankind. They do it from
the point of view that human beings live in different times and that their experiences maybe somehow
comparable, or that their experiences may have significantly differed contingent on the place and time. For the
historians, history becomes only that part of the human past which can be meaningfully reconstructed from
the available records and from inference regarding their setting.
In short, historian’s aim is verisimilitude (the truth, authenticity, plausibility) about a past. Unlike the
study of the natural science that has objectively measurable phenomena, the study of history is subjective
process as documents and relics are scattered and do not together comprise the total object that the historian
is studying. Some of the natural scientists, such as geologists and paleo-zoologists who study fossils from the
traces of a perished past, greatly resemble historians in this regard, but they differ at certain points since
historians deal with human testimonies as well as physical traces.

HISTORICAL METHOD AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past is called
historical method. The imaginative reconstruction of the past form the data derived historiography. By means
of historical and historiography (both of which are frequently grouped together simply as historical method),
he historian endeavors to reconstruct as much of the past of mankind as he/she can. Even in this limited effort,
however, the historian handicapped. He/she rarely can tell the story even of a part of the past as it occurred.
For the past conceived of as something “actually occurred” places obvious limits upon the kinds of record and
of imagination that the historians may use. These limits distinguish history from fiction, poetry, drama and
fantasy.
Historical analysis is also an important element of historical method. In historical analysis, historians:
(1) select the subject to investigate; (2) collect the probable sources of information on the subject; (3) examine
the sources of genuineness, in part of in whole; and (4) extract credible “particulars” from the sources (or parts
of sources). The synthesis of the “particulars” thus derived is historiography. Synthesis and analysis cannot be
entirely separated since they have a common ground, which is the ability to understand the past through some
meaningful, evocative and convincing historical or cross-disciplinary connections between a given historical
issue and other historical contexts, periods, or themes

LESSON 2 - SOURCES OF HISTORICAL DATA

HISTORICAL DATA are sourced from artifacts have been left by the fast. These artifacts can either be
relics or remains, or the testimonies of witnesses to the past. Thus, historical sources are those materials from
which the historians construct meaning. To rearticulate, a source is an object from the past or testimony
concerning the past on which historians depends to create their own depiction of the past. A historical work or
interpretation is thus the result of such depiction. The source provides evidence about the existence of the
event; and a historical interpretation in an argument of the event.
Relics or “remains”, whose existence offers researchers a clue about the past, for example, the relics
or remains of a prehistoric settlement. Artifacts can be found where relics of human happenings can be found,
for example, a potsherd, a coin, a ruin, a manuscript, a book, a portrait, a stamp, a piece of wreckage, a strand
of hair, or other archeological or anthropological remains. These object, however never happening or the
events; if writing documents, they may be the results or the records of events. Whether artifacts or
documents, they are materials out of which history may be written. (Howell & Preveneir, 2001.)
Testimonies or witnesses, whether oral or written, may have been created to serve a record or they
might have been created for some purposes. All these describe an event, such as the records of a property
exchange, speeches and commentaries.
The historian deals with the dynamic or genetic (the becoming) as well as the static (the being) and
aims at being interpretative (explaining why and how things happen and interrelated) as well as descriptive
(telling what happened, when and where, and who took part). Besides, the descriptive data as can be describe
direct and immediately from surviving artifacts are only small part of the periods to which then belongs. A
historical context can be given to them if only they can be placed in human setting. The lives of human being
can be assumed from the retrieved artifacts, but without further evidence the human contexts of these
artifacts can be never recaptured of any degree of certainty.

WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY

Written sources are usually categorized in three ways: (1) narrative or literary (2) diplomatic or
juridical and (3) social documents.
1. Narrative or literatures are chronicles or tracts presented in narrative form, written to impart a message
whose motives for their composition vary widely. For example, a scientific tract is typically composed in
order to inform contemporaries or succeeding generation; a newspaper article might be intended to
shape opinion; the so- called ego document or personal narrative such as a diary or memoir might be
composed in order to persuade readers of the justice of the author’s actions ; a novel or film might be
made to entertain ,to deliver a moral teaching, or to further a religious cause; a biography might be
written in praise of the subject’s worth and achievements (a panegyric, a public speech or published text
in praise of someone or something or hagiography, the writing of the lives of saints). A narrative source is
therefore broader than what is usually considered fiction. (Howell & Prevenier, 2001).
2. Diplomatic sources are understood to be those which document/record an existing legal situation or
create a new one, and it is these kinds of sources that professional historians once treated as the purest,
the “best” source. The classic diplomatic source is the charter, which a legal instrument. A legal document
is usually sealed or authenticated to provide evidence that a legal transaction has been completed and
can be used as evidence in a judicial proceeding in case of dispute. Scholars differentiate those legal
instruments issued by public authorities (such as kings or popes, the Supreme Court of the Philippines and
Philippine Congress) from those involving only private parties (such as a will or a mortgage agreement).
Diplomatic sources possess specific formal properties, such as hand and print style, the ink, the seal, for
external properties and rhetorical devices and images for internal properties, which are determined by
the norms of laws and by tradition. Such characters also vary in time (each generation has its own norms)
and according to origin (each bureaucracy has its own traditions).

3. Social documents are information pertaining to economic, social, political, or judicial significance. They
are records kept by bureaucracies. A few examples are government reports, such as municipal accounts,
research findings, and documents like these, parliamentary procedures, civil registry records, property
registers, and records of census.

NON-WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY

Unwritten sources are as essential as written sources. They are two types: the material evidence and oral
evidence.
1. Material evidence, also known as archaeological evidence is one of the most important unwritten
evidences. This includes artistic creation such as pottery, jewelry, dwellings, grave, churches, roads,
and others that tell a story about the past. These artifacts can tell a great deal about the ways of life
of people in the past, and their culture. These artifacts can also reveal a great deal about the socio-
cultural interconnections of the different groups of people especially when an object is unearthed in
more one place. Commercial exchange may also be revealed by the presence of artifacts in different
places. Even places that are thought to be significant, such as garbage pits, can provide valuable
information to historians as these can be traces of a former settlement.

Sometimes, archeological sites that are of interest to historians are unearthed during
excavations for road, sewer line, and big building structures. Known historical sites are purposely
excavated with the hope of reconstructing and understanding their meaningful past. Moreover,
 archeological finds such as coins or monies can provide historians with significant information relating
to government transactions during which the currencies were in circulation. Similarly, historians can
get substantial information from drawings, etching, paintings, films, and photographs. These are the
visual representations of the past.

2. Oral evidence is also an important source of information for historians. Much are told by the tales or
sagas of ancient peoples and the folk songs or popular rituals from the premodern period of
Philippine history. During the present age, interviews are another major form of oral evidence.

PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY SOURCES

There are two general kinds of historical sources: direct or primary and indirect or secondary.
1. Primary sources are original, first-hand account of an event or period that are usually written or made
during or close to the event or period. These sources are original and factual, not interpretive. Their
key function is to provide facts. Examples of primary sources are diaries, journal, letters, newspaper
and magazine articles (factual accounts), government records (census, marriage, military),
photographs, maps, postcard, posters, recorded or transcribed speeches, interviews with participants
or witnesses, interviews with people who lived during a certain time, songs, play, novels, stories,
paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

2. Secondary sources, on the other hand, are materials made by people long after the events being
described had taken place to provide valuable interpretations of historical events. A secondary source
analyzes and interprets primary sources. It is an interpretation of second-hand account of a historical
event. Examples of secondary sources are biographies, histories, literacy criticism, books written by a
third party about a historical event, art and theater reviews, newspaper or journal articles that
interpret.

LESSON 3 - HISTORICAL CRITICISMS

Historical criticism examines the origins of earliest text to appreciate the underlying circumstances
upon which the text came to be (Soulen and Soulen,2001).It has two important goals: First ,to discover the
original meaning of the text in its primitive or historical context and it's literal sense or sensus literalis
historicus. Second, is to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipient of the
text. Historical criticism has two types, external criticism and internal criticism.
Historical criticism has its roots in the 17th century during the Protestant Reformation and gained
popular recognition in the 19th and 20th century (Ebeling, 1963).The absence of historical investigation paved
the way for historical criticism to rest on philosophical and theological interpretation. The passing of time has
advance historical criticism into various methodologies used today such as source criticism (which analyze and
studies the sources used by biblical author), form criticism (which seek to determine a unit original from and
historical context of the literary tradition), redaction criticism (which regards the author of the text as editor of
the source material), tradition criticism (which attempt to trace the developmental stage of the oral tradition
from its historical emergence to its literary presentation), canonical criticism (which focuses its interpretation
of the Bible on the text of biblical cannon), and related methodologies (Soulen,2001).
There are two parts of a historical criticism. The first part is to determine the authenticity of the
material, also called provenance of the source .The critics should determine the origin of the material, its
author, and the source of information used. External criticism is used in determining these facts .The second
part is to weigh the testimony to the truth .The critic must examine the trustworthiness of the testimony as
well as determine the probability of the statement to be true. This process is called internal criticism or higher
criticism since it deals with more important matter than the external form .
1. . External Criticism determines the authenticity of the source. The authenticity of the material
may be tested in two ways, by paleographical (the deciphering and dating of historical
 manuscript) and diplomatic criticism (critical analysis of historical documents to understand how
the document came to be, the information transmitted, and the relationship between the facts
purported in the document and the reality).The material must be investigated based on the time
and place it is written. The critic must determine whether the material under investigation is raw,
meaning unaltered, and it exists exactly as the author left it. The content must be viewed in every
possible angle, as forgery was not unknown during the Middle Ages. The authority of the material
can be examined from other genuine sources having the same subject or written during the same
period. The similarities or agreements and differences or disagreement of some common details,
such as the culture and traditions, and events during the period by which the document was
made can be a basis for judging the authenticity of the text.
2. Internal criticism determines the historicity of the facts contained in the documents. It is not
necessary to prove the authenticity of the material or document. However, the facts contained in
the document must first be tested before any conclusion pertaining to it can be admitted. In
determining the value of the facts, the character of the sources, the knowledge of the author,
and the influences prevalent at the time of writing must be careful investigated. It must be
ascertained first that the critic knows exactly what the author said and that he/she understands
the documents from the standpoint of the author. Moreover, the facts given by the author or
writer must be firmly established as having taken place exactly as reported.

TEST OF AUTHENTICITY
To distinguish a hoax a misrepresentation from a genuine document, the historian must use tests
common in police and legal detection. Making the best guess if the date of the documents, he/she examines
the materials to see whether they are not anachronistic: paper was rare in Europe before the fifteenth
century, and printing was unknown; pencils did not exist before the 16th century; typewriting was not
invented until the 19th century; and Indian paper came only at the end of that century. The historian also
examines the inks for signs of age or of anachronistic chemical composition.
Making the best guess of the possible author of the document, he/she sees of he/she can identify the
handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, or watermarked. Even when the handwriting is unfamiliar, it can be
compared with authenticated specimens. One of the unfulfilled needs of the historian is more of what the
French call "isographies" or the dictionaries of biography giving examples of handwriting. For some period of
history, experts using techniques known as paleography and diplomatics have long known that in certain
regions at certain times handwriting and the style and form of official documents were conventionalized. The
disciplines of paleography and diplomatics were founded in 17th century by Dom Jean Mabillon, a French
Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. Seals have been the subject of special study
by sigillographers, and experts can detect fake ones. Anachronistic style (idiom, orthography, or punctuation)
can be detected by specialists who are familiar with cotemporary writing. Often spelling particularly of proper
names and signatures, reveal forgery as would also unhistoric grammar.
Anachronistic references or events (too early or too late er too remote) or the shafting of a document
at a time when the alleged writer could not possibly have been at all place designated (the alibi) uncovers
Fraud sometimes skillful forger has all the a copy in certain passages: by skillful paraphrase and invention
he/she given away by the absence trivia and otherwise unknown details from his/her manufactured account.
However, usually if the document is where it ought to be (e.g. in a family's archives, of incomprehensible in the
governmental bureau’s record) its provenance (costudy, as the lawyers refer to it), creates a presumption of its
genuineness (Gottsschalk, 1969).