History: Etymology, Methodology, and Sources Study of Sources Study Guide

THE MEANING AND ETYMOLOGY OF HISTORY

• Etymological Origin: The word "History" is derived from the Greek word historia, which translates to "learning by inquiry."

• Aristotelian Perspective: The Greek philosopher Aristotle viewed history as the systematic accounting of a set of natural phenomena. He emphasized taking into consideration the chronological arrangement of the account. This perspective posits that knowledge is derived through the process of scientific investigation into past events.

• General Definition: History typically refers to accounts of phenomena, specifically human affairs, organized in chronological order.

• Theories of Historical Investigation: Historians utilize two primary theories when investigating history:

  • Factual History: This approach presents the plain and basic information regarding events. It answers the fundamental questions of:
    • What: The events that took place.
    • When: The specific time and date of the events.
    • Where: The place where the events occurred.
    • Who: The people involved.
  • Speculative History: This approach goes beyond mere facts to explore the reasons and methods behind events. It focuses on:
    • Why: The reasons for which events happened.
    • How: The way in which they happened.
    • Quote: "It tries to speculate on the cause and effect of an event" (Cantal, Cardinal, Espino & Galindo, 2014).

• The Role of the Historian: Individuals who write about history are known as historians. Their primary goals include:

  • Understanding the present by examining what preceded it.
  • Undertaking arduous historical research to create a meaningful and organized rebuilding of the past.
  • Answering the core question, "Whose past are we talking about?", as this determines the purpose and framework of the historical account.

• Historiography: This refers to the practice of historical writing.

  • Traditional Historiography: A method focusing on gathering documents from various libraries and archives to create a pool of evidence for descriptive or analytical narratives.
  • Modern Historiography: Expands beyond document examination to include research methods from related fields, such as archaeology and geography.

THE LIMITATION OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

• The Issue of Incompleteness: Man's knowledge of history is significantly limited by the incompleteness of records. Most human affairs occur without leaving any evidence, records, or artifacts. Even when artifacts survive, the human setting required to contextualize them may be lost.

• History-as-Actuality vs. History-as-Record:

  • History-as-Actuality: The entirety of the past as it actually happened.
  • History-as-Record: The surviving records of the past.
  • Historians only have access to history-as-record, which constitutes only a "tiny part" of history-as-actuality. Archaeological and anthropological discoveries are merely small fragments of the total past.

• Variability of Historical Claims: Historians interpret what they believe to be credible parts of the surviving record. However, these claims are variable and subject to change; new discoveries can either affirm or refute existing historical presentations. This highlights the inherent incompleteness of the "object" historians study.

HISTORY AS THE SUBJECTIVE PROCESS OF RE-CREATION

• Restoration efforts: Despite incomplete evidence, historians strive to restore the total past of mankind. This is done from the perspective that human experiences across different times may be comparable or may differ significantly based on time and location.

• Subjectivity in History: Unlike natural sciences which have objectively measurable phenomena, history is a subjective process. This is because documents and relics are scattered and do not form a complete whole of the object under study.

• Verisimilitude: The ultimate aim of the historian is to achieve verisimilitude, defined as the truth, authenticity, and plausibility of a past.

• Comparison to Natural Scientists: Some natural scientists, like geologists and paleo-zoologists studying fossils, resemble historians in their study of a perished past. However, historians are unique in that they deal with human testimonies in addition to physical traces.

HISTORICAL METHOD AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

• Definitions and Distinction:

  • Historical Method: The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past.
  • Historiography (Process): The imaginative reconstruction of the past based on data derived from the historical method.

• The Historian's Handicap: Historians can rarely tell the story of the past exactly as it occurred. The reality of what "actually occurred" limits the types of records and imagination a historian can use. These limits distinguish history from fiction, poetry, drama, and fantasy.

• Elements of Historical Analysis:

  1. Selection of the subject to investigate.
  2. Collection of probable sources of information on said subject.
  3. Examination of the genuineness of the sources (in part or in whole).
  4. Extraction of credible "particulars" from those sources.

• Synthesis: The synthesis of these derived "particulars" constitutes historiography. Analysis and synthesis are inseparable, linked by the need to understand the past through evocative, meaningful, and convincing cross-disciplinary connections between historical issues and other contexts, periods, or themes.

SOURCES OF HISTORICAL DATA

• Historical Data: Sourced from artifacts left by the past. These artifacts represent materials from which historians construct meaning.

• Definitions of Sources: An object from the past or a testimony concerning the past. The source provides evidence of an event's existence, while a historical interpretation is an argument about that event.

• Types of Artifacts:

  • Relics or "Remains": Their existence offers clues about the past (e.g., prehistoric settlements).
  • Examples: Potsherds, coins, ruins, manuscripts, books, portraits, stamps, wreckage, strands of hair, or other archaeological/anthropological remains.
  • Note: Objects are not the events themselves; written documents may be the results or records of events.

• Testimonies of Witnesses: Can be oral or written. They may be created as formal records or for other purposes (e.g., property exchange records, speeches, commentaries).

• Historian's Dual Focus: The historian deals with the dynamic/genetic (the "becoming") and the static (the "being"). They aim to be both:

  • Interpretative: Explaining why and how things happened and were interrelated.
  • Descriptive: Telling what happened, when, where, and who was involved.

WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY

• 1. Narrative or Literary Sources: Chronicles or tracts written in narrative form to impart a message. Motives vary:

  • Scientific Tracts: Intended to inform contemporaries or future generations.
  • Newspaper Articles: Intended to shape opinion.
  • Ego Documents/Personal Narratives: (e.g., diaries, memoirs) Written to persuade readers of the justice of the author's actions.
  • Novels or Films: Intended to entertain, deliver moral teachings, or further religious causes.
  • Biographies: Written in praise of a subject's achievements.
    • Panegyric: A public speech or text in praise of someone.
    • Hagiography: The writing of the lives of saints.

• 2. Diplomatic Sources: Documents that record an existing legal situation or create a new one. Once treated by professional historians as the "purest" and "best" sources.

  • The Charter: A classic diplomatic legal instrument. Usually sealed or authenticated to serve as evidence in judicial proceedings.
  • Classification: Includes legal instruments issued by public authorities (Kings, Popes, Supreme Court, Congress) and those involving private parties (wills, mortgage agreements).
  • Properties: Possess external properties (hand/print style, ink, seal) and internal properties (rhetorical devices, images) determined by tradition and law.

• 3. Social Documents: Information regarding economic, social, political, or judicial significance, typically kept by bureaucracies.

  • Examples: Municipal accounts, government reports, research findings, parliamentary procedures, civil registry records, property registers, and census records.

NON-WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY

• 1. Material/Archaeological Evidence: Includes artistic creations like pottery, jewelry, dwellings, graves, churches, and roads.

  • Utility: These artifacts reveal ways of life, culture, sociocultural interconnections, and commercial exchanges (especially when found in multiple locations).
  • Sites: Garbage pits can be traces of former settlements. Archaeological sites are often unearthed during modern construction (roads, sewers).
  • Visual Representations: Coins/monistic finds inform on government transactions. Drawings, etchings, paintings, films, and photographs serve as visual representations of the past.

• 2. Oral Evidence: Important information derived from tales, sagas of ancient peoples, folk songs, or popular rituals from pre-modern history. In the modern age, interviews are a major form of oral evidence.

PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY SOURCES

• 1. Primary Sources: Original, first-hand accounts of an event or period, usually created during or close to the time of the event.

  • Characteristics: Original, factual, and not interpretive. Their key function is to provide facts.
  • Examples: Diaries, journals, letters, factual newspaper/magazine articles, government records (census, marriage, military), photographs, maps, postcards, posters, transcribed speeches, participant/witness interviews, songs, plays, novels, stories, paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

• 2. Secondary Sources: Materials created by people long after the events have occurred.

  • Characteristics: These provide valuable interpretations and analyses of primary sources. They are second-hand accounts.
  • Examples: Biographies, histories, literary criticism, books by third parties about historical events, art and theater reviews, and interpretive newspaper or journal articles.