{Lesson | SOURCES OF HISTORICAL DATA Liaise HISTORICAL DATA are sourced from artifacts that have eenleft by the past. The,, artifacts can either be relics or remains, or the testimonies of witnesses to the Past. Thy, historical sources are those materials from which the historians construct meaning. 7, rearticulate, a source is an object from the past or a testimony concerning hia Past op which historians depend to create their own depiction of that past. ib historical Work op interpretation is thus the result of such depiction. The source provides evidence abou, the existence of an event; and a historical interpretation is an argument about the event Relics or “remains,” whose existence offer researchers a clue about the past. Fo, 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, manuscript, a book, a portrait, a stamp, a piece of wreckage, a strand of hair, or other archaeological or anthropological remains. These objects, however, are never the happenings or the events; if written 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 and Prevenier, 2001). Testimonies of witnesses, whether oral or written, may have been created to serve as records or they might have been created for some other purposes. All these describe an event, such as the record 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 happened and were interrelated) as well as descriptive (telling what happened, when and where, and who took part). Besides, such descriptive data as can be derived directly and immediately from surviving artifacts are only small parts of the periods to which they belong. A historical context can be given to them only if they can be placed ini a human setting. The lives of human beings can be assumed from the retrieved artifacts, but without further evidence the human contexts of these artifacts can never be recaptured with any degree of certainty. WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY Written sources are usually categorized in three ways: (1) narrative or literary, diplomatic or juridical, and (3) social documents. 1. Narrative or literature are chronicles or tracts presented in narrative form, written to impart a message whose motives for their composition vai widely. For example, a scientific tract is typically composed in order to inforje intended contemporaries or succeeding generations; a newspaper artcle might be intend! 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). Diplomatic sources are understood to be those which document/record an existing legal situation or create anew one, anditis 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). 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. a: Material evidence, also known as archaeological evidence is one of the most important unwritten evidences. This include artistic creations such as pottery, jewelry, dwellings, graves, 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 insignificant, such as garbage pits, can provide valuable information to historians as these can be traces of a former settlement,interest to historians are unea, Sometimes, scene a ane Pentsgigeecuics during excavations for roa ‘i oe avated with the hope of reconstructing ay | aa rine afl past Moreover, archaeological finds suchas coi, understanding a ee significant information relating to govern es si i ih the currencies were in circulation. Similarly, histo z art siete information from drawings, Pe paintings, films, ang photographs. These are the visual representations of t ep i ae 2. Oral evidence is also an important source of information ns istorians, Mug, are told by the tales or sagas of ancient peoples and the fal Ik songs OF populy rituals from the premodern period of Philippine history. During the present age, interviews is another major form of oral evidence. PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY SOURCES There are two general kinds of historical sources: direct or primary and indirect g, 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 origina] and factual, not interpretive. Their key function is to provide facts. Examples of primary sources are diaries, journals, letters, newspaper and magazine articles (factual accounts), government records (census, marriage, military), photographs, maps, postcards, posters, recorded or transcribed speeches, interviews with participants or witnesses, interviews with people who lived during a certain time, songs, plays, 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, literary criticism, books written by a third party about a historical event, art and theater reviews, newspaper of journal articles that interpret.HISTORICAL CRITICISM examines the origins of earliest text to appreciate the underlying circumstances upon which the text came to be (Soulen & Soulen, 2001). It has two important goals: First, to discover the original meaning of the text in its primitive or historical context and its literal sense or sensus literals historicus. Second, to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipients of the text. Historical criticism has two types, external criticism and internal criticism. Historical criticism has its roots in the 17" century during the Protestant Reformation and gained popular recognition in the 19" and 20% centuries (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 advanced historical criticism into various methodologies used today such as source criticism (which analyzes and studies the sources used by biblical authors), form criticism (which seeks to determine a unit's original form and historical context of the literary tradition), redaction criticism (which regards the author of the text as editor of the Source materials), tradition criticism (which attempts to trace the developmental stages 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 canon), and related methodologies (oulen, 2001). There are two parts to a historical criticism. The first part is to determine the authenticity of the material, also called provenance of a source. The critic should determine the origin of the material, its author, and the sources 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 testimonies as well as determine the probability of the statements to be true. This process is called internal criticism or higher criticism since it deals with more important matters 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 palaeographical (the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts) and diplomatic criticism (critical analysis of historical document to understand how the document came to be, the information transmitted, and the relationships between the facts purported in the document and the reality). The material must be investigated based on the time and placeit is written. The critic must determine whether the material under investigation is raw, meaning unaltered, and it exists exactly as the author left it.sible angle, as forgery was not Unkng, m every pos Z My The content must be viewed in every posslble oe be examined during the Middle Ages. The authenticity of Baniaciee i other genuine sources having the same subject of WT ree period. The similarities or agreementsand differences © os ment of common details, such as the culture and traditions, and even + turing the per by which the document was made can be a basis for judging the authenticity, 7 the text. a a 2. Internal criticism determines the historicity of the facts contained in the document. It is not necessary to prove the authenticity of the materia) document, However, the facts contained in the document must first be te, 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, ag the influences prevalent at the time of writing must be carefully investiga, It must be ascertained first that the critic knows exactly what the author si; and that he/she understands the document from the standpoint of the autho, Moreover, the facts given by the author or writer must be firmly established having taken place exactly as reported. TEST OF AUTHENTICITY To distinguish a hoax or a misrepresentation from a genuine document, the historian must use tests common in police and legal detection. Making the best guess of the date: the document, 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 there before the 16" century; typewriting was not invented unt the 19 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 if hel she can identify the handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, or watermark. 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 “isographis’ 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 for of official documents were conventionalized. The disciplines of paleography and diplomatics were founded in 17 century by Dom Jean Mabillon, a French Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur, Seals have been the subject o special study by sigillographers, and experts can detect fake ones. Anachronistic sts (idiom, orthography, or punctuation) can be detected by specialists who are familia! with contemporary writing, Often spelling particularly of proper names and signatute reveal forgery as would also unhistoric grammar.Anachronistic references to events (too early or too late or too remote) or the dating of a document at a time when the alleged writer could not possibly have been at the place designated (the alibi) uncovers fraud. Sometimes the skillful forger has all too carefully followed the best historical sources and his product becomes too obviously a copy in certain passages; by skillful paraphrase and invention, he/she is given away by the absence of 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 in the governmental bureau's record) its provenance (custody, as the lawyers refer to it), creates a presumption of its genuineness (Gottschalk, 1969).