PHILIPPINE HISTORY
MODULE 2
HISTORICAL SOURCES
- These are objects (material culture)
from the past or testimonies
concerning the past on which
historians depend to create their own
depiction of that past.
- Tangible remains of the past
- Materials used for the writing of
history
2 CLASSIFICATIONS:
• Primary Sources
- testimony of an eyewitness
- Produced by a contemporary of the
event in narrates
- Materials produced by people or
groups directly involved in the event
or topic being studied. These people
are either participants or
eyewitnesses to the event. These
sources range from eyewitness’s
accounts, diaries, letters, legal
documents, official documents
(government and private) and even
photographs.
- materials produced by people or
groups directly involved in the event
or topic being studied.
- these sources range from eyewitness
accounts, diaries, letters, legal
documents, and official documents
(government or private) and even
photographs
Example:
1. photographs that may reflect social
conditions of historical realities and
everyday life
2. Statistical tables, graphs and charts
4 MAIN CATEGORIES OF PRIMARY
SOURCES:
1. Written Sources
o Published materials
Books, magazines, journals,
Travelogue
transcription of speech
o Manuscript [any
handwritten or typed
record that has not been
printed]
Archival materials
Memoirs, diary
2. Images
3. Artifacts
4. Oral Testimony
• Secondary Sources
- interprets and analyzes primary
sources. These sources are one or
more steps removed from the event.
- Secondary sources may have
pictures, quotes or graphics of
primary sources in them.
- Gottschalk describes secondary
sources as “the testimony of anyone
who is not an eyewitness – that is of
one who was not present at the event
of which he tells”
 Example: History Textbook & Printed
Materials
OTHER CLASSIFICATIONS:
• Written and non-written
• Published or unpublished
• Textual, oral, or visual sources
HISTORY
- derived from the Greek word “iotopia”
(historia) = learning; inquiry
- “The past of mankind”
- Geschichte – the germarn word for
history
- Geschelen – to happen
- History is the chronological record of
significant events, the study of past
events.
Kasaysayan
- Saysay (narrative or salaysay)
- Saysay (relevance, importance)
• Zeus Salazar’s definition
- Salaysay na may saysay para sa
sinasalaysayang grupo ng tao (relevant
stories/ narrative of the people)
HISTORY AS RECONSTRUCTION
- the historian is many times removed
from the events under investigation
- historians rely on surviving records
HISTORY DEFINED BY E.H CARR
• The inquiry conducted by the
historian and the series of past events
into which he inquires
• Is the continuous process of
interaction between the historian and
his facts, an unending dialogue
between the present and the past?
• History means interpretation
• History is what the historian makes
• Collingwood – History is the re-
enactment in the historian's mind
of the thought whose history he
is studying.
• Oakeshott – History is the
historian’s experience.
• Parsons – History is “a selective
system” not only cognitive, but
of casual, orientations to reality.
HISTORICAL METHOD
- The process of critically examining and
analyzing the records and survivals of
the past.
- Historians must verify sources, to date
them, locate their place of origin and
identify their intended functions
WHAT ARE SOURCES?
“The historian however has to use many
materials that are not in books. Where these
are archeological, epigraphical or
numismatic materials, he has to depend
largely on museums. Where there are
official records, he may have to search for
them in archives, courthouses, government
libraries. Etc. where there are private papers
not available in official collections, he may
have to hunt among the papers of business
houses, the muniment rooms of ancient
castles, the prized possessions of autograph
colectors, the recordsof parish churchs etc.
Having some subject in mind with more or
less definite delimitation of the persons,
areas, times and functions (example
diplomatic, economic, political or other
occupational aspects) involved he looks for
materials that may have been bearing upon
those persons in that area at the time they
function in that fashion.
The more precise his delimitation of
persons, area, time and finction, the more
relevant his sources are likely to be”
(Gottschalk, Understanding History, 1950).

EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL

CRISTICIM IN HISTORICAL
RESEARCH
1. External Criticism
- Verification of authenticity by
examining physical characteristics,
- Consistency with the historical
characteristics of the time when it was
produced, and the materials used (H.
Bilan)

o Anachronism - an error in
chronology
especially: a chronological m
isplacing of persons, events,
objects, or customs in regard
to each other found
several anachronisms in the
movie.

2. Internal Criticism
- This is about the truthfulness and
factuality of the evidence by
scrutinizing at the author of the source,
its context, the agenda behind its
creation, the knowledge which informed
it, and its intended purpose.
- Internal criticism analyzes the content
of the source and finds out the
circumstances of its production.