Understanding History: Notes on Sources and Historical Method

A. What Is a Source?

  • Sources are artifacts left by the past; they exist as relics/remains or as testimonies of witnesses to the past.
    • Relics/remains provide clues by their existence (e.g., wooden columns, pegs, dowels; artifacts illuminate culture, technical skills, artistic capacities, and interrelations by comparing objects across places).
    • Testimonies are oral or written reports describing events (e.g., property exchanges, land donations, stock trades). Speeches and commentaries are testimonies too.
    • Testimonies can tell what happened, how, under what circumstances, and why, but rarely yield equal measures of information; historians supplement the raw material with additional analysis.
  • Sources were usually created for their own age; relics were practical objects later treated as sources; testimonies served contemporaries’ needs (proof, information) and only rarely posterity.
  • The content of a testimony is often more important than its form, but form (style, rhetoric, etc.) can reveal much about context or intent.
  • Historians must uncover original purpose or function of relics/testimonies and understand what purposes they served at creation and how they were used thereafter.
  • Distinction between intentional and unintentional sources is not absolute; a source designed for one purpose may serve others later (e.g., a film made to record an event may reveal unintended truths; a memoir may reveal uncertainties the author sought to conceal).
  • Historians assess: the conditions under which a source was produced (intentions) and the historical context (preceding and following events) to understand meaning and reliability.
  • A source is an object or testimony on which historians base their depiction of the past; a historical work is the argument or interpretation built from that depiction.
  • Direct vs indirect sources:
    • Direct: letters, chronicles, laws, poems from the time.
    • Indirect: inventories, archival catalogs, princely registers pointing to broader contexts.
  • The boundaries between sources and historical studies are fluid; sometimes ancient authors (e.g., Herodotus, Thucydides) are both sources and interpreters, and their works can serve as sources about their own intellectual worlds too.
  • Lost sources become “sources of sources”: later historians’ works can illuminate lost evidence (e.g., Eusebius’s church history mentions now-lost texts).
  • Historians must distinguish literal content from interpretation; they are responsible for the meaning they impart, not just the source’s raw content.
  • Direct vs indirect exemplars:
    • Direct: eighteenth-century business letters, a law code, a contemporary poem.
    • Indirect: inventories naming contained items; archival registers naming codes or codes of law.
  • Examples: a midwife’s colonial diary used by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich to author A Midwife’s Tale; a diary’s value lies in its perspective on events and social life; diaries, memoirs, and biographies are ego documents with selective representation.

B. Source Typologies, Their Evolution and Complementarity

  • Written sources are often categorized into three broad types, though these are arbitrary and can distort interpretation:
    • Narrative/Literary: chronicles, tracts, diaries, memoirs, biographies, novels, and films. Motives vary: inform, persuade, entertain, advocate a cause, or celebrate a figure.
    • Diplomatic/Juridical: charters, legal instruments, decrees, legal judgments.
    • Social/Bureaucratic (social documents): records produced by state ministries, churches, foundations, schools, and other organizations (ambassadors’ reports, tax rolls, council debates, property registers, births/deaths registers).
  • Ego documents (diaries, personal narratives) reveal the author’s perspective and intended political/economic aims; they may not be reliable as day-by-day records but reveal perspectives and tactics.
  • Diplomatic sources (the classic “best” sources) have three parts:
    • Protocol: author/issuer, recipient, opening salutations, legitimating authority (divine, secular, or just legal).
    • Content: the case details and determination; form varies by purpose.
    • Eschatocol: authenticating formulas, witnesses, dates, seals.
    • Functions: law-giving, juridical judgments, and voluntary agreements (contracts, wills, licenses).
  • The “social documents” reveal administrative, fiscal, or social structures and processes (tax rolls, ambassador reports, parliamentary debates).
  • Unwritten sources complement written sources, and vice versa. Archaeological evidence (artifacts, graves, roads), visual representations (paintings, films, photographs), and oral evidence (folk songs, rituals, interviews) add breadth.
  • Oral tradition tests (Vansina): reliability depends on external checks (narrator’s group membership, transmission through institutions) and internal coherence (consistency with norms of language, ritual, law).
  • Vansina’s tests emphasize that oral accounts can be reliable when cross-validated by archaeology, linguistics, or culture; but not all oral accounts are equally reliable.
  • In practice, historians mix oral, written, and material sources, depending on period, subject, and availability.
  • The evolution of information technology blurred boundaries between written, oral, and material sources:
    • Printing press (c. ext{late 15th century}) enabled mass production and survival of documents; it increased accessibility and reduced loss.
    • Photographs and film (early 19th to 20th centuries) provide new kinds of evidence, with issues of preservation and accessibility.
    • Sound recordings, tape/celluloid film, radio, and television expanded the forms of testimony and introduced preservation challenges.
    • Digital media and computing create archival risks (obsolescence, format changes) but also enable sophisticated analysis (searchable texts, indexing, text mining).
  • The speed and reach of mass media shape collective memory: Vietnam War coverage, Gulf War coverage, Velvet Revolution, fall of the Berlin Wall, Tiananmen; media also introduces bias and “selection effects” in reporting.
  • Press freedom varies by regime and market: licensing, taxes, ownership, political pressures; modern outlets (CNN, The Times, Le Monde, FAZ) illustrate diverse pressures and independence.
  • Important caution: every report is selective and biased; historians must examine author, publisher, audience, and the publication context; reports can affect events they report (feedback loops).
  • Short-circuiting of information: oral tales can change in transmission; reports can distort perception; even modern media can misinterpret due to linguistic/cultural codes or lack of context.
  • The archive is central to the historian but not the only repository of evidence; public archives, private collections, museum holdings, university archives, and special repositories preserve different kinds of material.

C. The Impact of Communication and Information Technology on the Production of Sources

  • Three historical phases of information transfer and their implications for sources:
    • Phase 1: Human messengers, visual signals (flags), and sound (drums). Speed limited by physical travel: roughly up to 6 mph; occasional conventions (flags at half-mast, sirens for alarms).
    • Phase 2: Pack animals; speeds doubled or tripled relative to phase 1; center around early writing systems (clay tablets ext{c. }3000 ext{ B.C.E.}; alphabets by ext{ca. }1000 ext{ B.C.E.}); courier systems (Persian, Byzantium, Rome); postal networks (
      Thurn and Taxis in 16th–18th centuries; communications monopolies in 1505).
    • Phase 3: Mechanical media; trains ( ext{c. }1830, 30-35 mph); telegraph (1844); rapid long-distance transmission (by 1896 seven minutes across the globe);
      telephone, fax, radio, television, satellite; mass media services (Reuters, UPI).
  • Three categories of information and their literacy requirements:
    • Secret/encoded correspondence (litterae clausae).
    • General correspondence (litterae patentes), eventually replaced by newspapers.
    • Newsprint as a form of communication (newspapers and avvisi in Venice; Zeitungen in Germany).
  • Technological advances increased survivability and reach of messages, but the newer media can be more ephemeral (audio-visual mediums may degrade over time unless preserved).
  • The speed and reach of information influence historical memory and the interpretation of events; faster dissemination can create shared experiences (collective memory) and bias in interpretation.
  • The press has played a critical role in politics and public opinion; the tension between commercial interests, state influence, and editorial independence persists; sensationalism vs sober reporting remains a risk.
  • For historians using the press as a source, analyze: author, issuer, publisher, audience, institutional location, and context of publication; consider how sensational reports influence events and memory.
  • Corroboration is essential: even with modern sources, cross-checking is necessary because bias, propaganda, and information distortion are pervasive across media.

D. Storing and Delivering Information

  • The archive is a principal source for historians, but has two senses:
    • General sense: a collection of documents held by a natural or legal person (e.g., a government agency).
    • Institutional sense: the place or institution that holds the collection (archive as an organization).
  • Living vs historical archives:
    • Living archives grow with ongoing activity; historical archives are parts of living collections that have been separated for posterity.
  • Before the French Revolution, archives were kept by original owners; the Revolution centralized archives in public state archives.
  • Post-revolution organization: regional depositories; national capitals as central repositories; local archives persisted in major cities; exceptions exist (private or church archives).
  • Private papers and private archives: increasing acceptance since 1959 (British Public Record Office) and 1955 (Royal Archive of Belgium) but many private papers end up in universities or museums.
  • Other kinds of repositories: museums (artifacts), libraries (coins, medallions), film/record libraries (e.g., MoMA, German Federal Archive).
  • Archival practice emphasizes provenance (place of origin) as the most important organizing principle; knowing where a document came from is essential for assessing its intellectual origins and use.
  • The documentation of provenance became standardized in the 1841 French reforms and later elsewhere; this improves the ability to evaluate credibility.
  • The survival of archival material is limited by factors such as:
    • The rarity of recording events; many banal events were not recorded.
    • Originals not saved by their producers; private papers often discarded or lost.
    • Catastrophic destruction (e.g., Ypres archives in WWI; Library of Alexandria; Naples archive destroyed in WWII).
    • Inadequate preservation practices, fragile inks/papers (pre-1840 rag paper is more durable; modern papers may deteriorate; ink preservation is challenging).
    • Absent or lost records due to organizational priorities or chance.
    • Overload of material post-World War II requiring sampling, microfilm, and other techniques to manage information flood.
  • Solutions to preservation challenges:
    • Microfilm and microfiche as durable proxies; creation of shadow archives; storage centers/Record Centers for documents no longer in official use (1941 onward in England/US examples).
    • Collaboration between living archives and historical archives to decide on transfers and cataloging.
  • The discussion of publishing sources and making them accessible includes: microfilming of serial data (fiscal accounts, census data); printed indexes of archival holdings; electronic texts with searchable corpora; new methods enable detailed analysis of rhetorical and linguistic features.

CHAPTER TWO: Technical Analysis of Sources

  • For a source to be used as evidence, certain basic matters must be settled:
    • Comprehensibility: is language/handwriting/vocabulary accessible? Older or foreign-language documents require careful reading.
    • Location in time and place: when/where was it composed; what social setting; who authored it; internal evidence for dating; cross-reference with related documents.
    • Authenticity: is it what it purports to be? Could it be forged or misrepresented? Evidence of the author/issuer matters for authenticity.
  • These criteria apply to both written and oral/pictorial sources; many sources require interpretation beyond literal content.

CHAPTER III: What Are "History" and "Historical Sources"?

  • The Meaning of History:
    • English history derives from loropia (Aristotle) meaning learning; Latin scientia (science) influenced usage; history in English generally means the past of mankind.
    • The GermanGeschichte (from geschehen, to happen) emphasizes events; thus the term is tied to what happened.
    • The past of mankind cannot be fully reconstructed; total memory is unattainable; historians work toward a reconstruction that approaches the past but is inherently limited.
  • Objectivity vs Subjectivity:
    • Some objects survive (ruins, parchments, coins) and some truths come from testimony; all knowledge of the past is mediated through human interpretation and memory.
    • Objective reality is difficult to claim for historical knowledge; historians aim for verisimilitude (likeness to the past) rather than absolute certainty.
    • The historian’s task is to approach the past as closely as possible, recognizing the inevitable interpretive aspect.
  • Artifacts as Sources:
    • Artifacts (pots, inscriptions, buildings) provide direct data about human activity or material culture but do not themselves equal events.
    • A contextual human setting is inferred from artifacts, but such inferences carry uncertainty; a building might be a stable or a church, etc.
    • The past is often incomplete; even surviving artifacts are a fraction of what existed.
  • History as Record vs History as Actuality:
    • History-as-record: surviving documents and relics.
    • History-as-actuality: what happened, which is often irrecoverable in full; historians reconstruct plausible narratives from the record.
    • The historian’s aim is to create credible reconstructions rather than perfect replicas of past events.
  • The Human/Personal Document:
    • Human document: accounts of individual experience and actions within social life.
    • Personal document: self-revealing records of the author’s mental life.
    • The historian treats documents as reflecting both the subject and the observer, recognizing the subjectivity involved in interpretation.
  • The Problem of Authenticity (External Criticism):
    • Forged or misleading documents are common; motivations include claims to title, propaganda, or simple fabrication.
    • Notable examples: Donation of Constantine (forged; exposed by Valla); forged letters (Marie Antoinette); hoaxes; misattributed materials; diary and memoir forgeries.
    • Tests of authenticity include examining dating (anachronisms), handwriting, handwriting analysis, seals, watermarking, and provenance.
    • Anachronistic style or references, unhistoric grammar, or alibis help detect forgeries; the provenance (custodial history) adds credibility.
    • Textual criticism (lower criticism) reconstructs the original text by comparing multiple copies; identifies interpolations and omissions; uses family-group text analysis to approximate the original wording.
    • Sciences auxiliary to history (Egyptology, philology, paleography, diplomatics) provide textual restoration and authentication.
  • The Problem of Credibility (Internal Criticism):
    • The historian’s task is to assess credibility of particulars within documents, not just to accept the document wholesale.
    • A historical fact is a particular derived from historical documents and regarded as credible after critical testing; usually multiple corroborating sources increase credibility.
    • The four tests for credibility of a detail:
    • (1) Was the ultimate source able to tell the truth? (Ability)
    • (2) Was the ultimate source willing to tell the truth? (Willingness)
    • (3) Is the reporting accurate? (Reporting accuracy)
    • (4) Is there independent corroboration? (Corroboration)
    • The four tests focus on the credibility of the particular detail, not on the entire source.
    • The idea of the “personal equation” (frame of reference) highlights the biases, experiences, and social context shaping the witness’s testimony.
    • The independence of witnesses is crucial for corroboration; two independent witnesses agreeing may still be the result of copying; independence must be established.
    • The historian must consider not only direct testimony but also internal coherence, consistency with known facts, and the author’s worldview.
    • The Gettysburg Address example illustrates how a short document can reveal authorial identity, purpose, and historical context; approximate dating can be inferred from internal evidence and context.
    • Corroboration is strongest when independent witnesses agree; in some cases there may be only a single witness, requiring other corroboration (e.g., author’s motives, behavior, or broader historical patterns).
    • Certitude vs certainty: historical truths are not absolute certainties but credible approximations based on evidence; modern periods tend to produce more contested accounts due to abundant sources and opposing interpretations.

Key cross-cutting implications and themes across the text:

  • The reliability of historical knowledge rests on the critical examination of sources (external and internal criticism) and the ability to reconstruct credible details from partial and biased evidence.
  • The relationship between source material and interpretation is dialectical: sources constrain interpretation, and interpretations reveal new questions about sources.
  • Technology and media shape both the production and preservation of sources and the public’s memory of events; historians must account for biases introduced by media ecosystems and institutional controls on information.
  • Ethical and philosophical considerations include acknowledging the inevitability of subjectivity, the need for rigorous corroboration, and the responsibility to present a credible, well-evidenced interpretation rather than alleged “truth.”
  • The cumulative process of collecting, preserving, editing, and analyzing sources is central to the discipline; archives, libraries, and museums are active participants in shaping historical knowledge.
  • The study of history requires a balance between skepticism toward sources (authenticity, credibility) and the ability to extract meaningful, testable facts that illuminate past human behavior and structures.

LaTeX-friendly numerical references used above (examples):

  • Speed in Phase 1: 6 mph
  • Phase 2 speed increases: up to 2 imes–3 imes the Phase 1 speed
  • First newspapers: ext{Strasbourg } (1609), ext{Antwerp } (1629)
  • Telegraph: 1844, comparable cross-global transmission by 1896 in seven minutes
  • Printing press effect: late 15^{ ext{th}} century
  • Video/film timelines: moving pictures around the late 19^{ ext{th}} to mid-twentieth centuries; television availability around the 1930s-1940s; mass accessibility by the 1950s
  • Notable dates in archival history: French Revolution archival centralization (late 18th century) and subsequent national/regional archival structures
  • For forgery tests: use anachronisms: printer types, ink chemistry, handwriting, watermarks, alibis; provenance is crucial for credibility
  • Examples of corroboration rules: 2 independent witnesses are typically required; single-wouch evidence requires other corroboration

Note: The sections above reflect the major and minor points raised across the transcript pages 1–46, preserving specific examples, methodological distinctions, and the practical implications for historical practice. The material is organized to function as a comprehensive study aid that could substitute for the source text in preparing for exams on historical methods, source analysis, and historiography.