The Methodology of

History
 Prayer
Dear God,
We come before your presence once again.
We thank you for another day.
We ask your guidance in today’s meeting.
Make us attentive to the activity on hand.
Provide us the wisdom to understand our lesson
And an open mind to appreciate what it teaches.
We ask these in Jesus’ name
Amen.
 Learning outcomes:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of historical methodology;
2. Evaluate primary sources for their credibility, authenticity and
provenance;
3. Differentiate primary from secondary sources;
4. Familiarize yourselves with repositories of sources;
5. Demonstrate skill in doing external and internal criticism of sources.
Methodology of
History
According to Louis M. Gottschalk (1950) in his
work, Understanding History: A Primer of
Historical Method:
Only a part of what was observed in the
past was remembered by those who
observed it; only a part of what was
remembered was recorded. Only a part
of what was recorded has survived; only
a part of what has survived has come to
the historian’s attention and only a part
of what has been grasped can be
expounded or narrated by the historian.
 Implications:
1. The historian is fallible, capable of committing errors.
2. He can be affected by biases that are personal, political or religious.
3. Each has his own frame of reference, a set of interlocking values,
loyalties, assumptions, interests and principles of action.
Why?
• The historian is many times removed from the
events under investigation.
• Historians rely on surviving records.
What does this photo mean to you?
 Different Interpretations
• From a political opponent: “I wonder if he’s as good as he is in
Malacañang”
• An LP loyalist: “Good for him, he deserves a break from his
everyday work”
• A clergyman: “As a role model for all Filipinos, he shouldn’t be
photographed doing that”
What about this?
 History is not fiction
• Historical accounts must be based on all available relevant evidence.

• A version of the past that can’t be supported by evidence is worthless.

 What is then the Historical Method?
• The historical method is employed by researchers who are interested
in reporting events and/or conditions that occurred in the past. An
attempt is made to establish facts in order to arrive at conclusions
concerning past events or predict future events.
• The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by
which historians use primary sources and other evidence to
research and then to write histories in the form of accounts of the
past.
…process of critically examining
and analyzing the records and
survivals of the past.
• Core protocols historians use for handling sources.
 A note on the use of sources
• Positivist history wanted a grand narrative charting the progress of
humanity from religion to positive philosophy and revealing the
operation of the laws of history.
• Result:
Historians wanted the writing of history to become scientific.
• During this period we will see the struggle between these two
tendencies which dominated later 19th century.
• Fustel de Coulanges who discussed the function of pagan religion in
ensuring the cohesion of family and state.
• The philosophical wing was exemplified by Taine, who viewed history
as the interaction between race, milieu, and moment.
• The empiricist wing included Gabriel Monod, who wanted to promote
a more scientific and professional approach to history like that of
Leopold von Ranke and his followers.
• The positivist approach, documentary and evolutionist, can be seen in
the history of science practiced by Pierre Duhem, Ferdinand
Brunetiere, and Ferdinand Brunot.
• But it was Charles-Victor Langlois and Charles Seignobos, who
wrote the methods of traditional history in a book they wrote in 1898
entitled Introduction auz etudes historiques, or Introduction to the
Study of History.
• According to them there are four characteristics of traditional history:
• the belief that history is made up of events that already transpired;
• the importance of documents in order to reconstruct a historical event;
• the use of criticism to establish the authenticity of a documentary evidence as
well as its content;
• the importance of people in power or elites of society as the center or source
of historical events.
 The main is question:

• How will a historian be able to prove something that he has not seen
with his own eyes?
• What would his dilemma be?
• Certainly, he will have the difficulty of looking for documentary
evidences and of proving the authenticity of such documents because
what is written here is not the event itself but the frame of mind or the
mentality or psychological mindset of the person who wrote it.
• How can the historian therefore avoid misreading the document?
•Historians have to verify sources, to
date them, locate their place of origin
and identify their intended functions
(Orillos, 2017).