Sources of Historical
Data
MARK JAMES M. VINEGAS
HISTORICAL DATA are sourced from artifacts have been left by the fast.
These artifacts can either be relics or remains, or the testimonies of
witnesses to the past. Thus, historical sources are those materials from
which the historians construct meaning.
To rearticulate, a source is an object from the past or testimony
concerning the past on which historians depends to create their own
depiction of the past.
A historical work or interpretation is thus the result of such depiction. The
source provides evidence about the existence of the event; and a
historical interpretation in an argument of the event.
Relics or “remains”, whose existence offers researchers a clue about the
past, for 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, a manuscript, a book, a portrait, a stamp, a piece of
wreckage, a strand of hair, or other archeological or anthropological remains.
These object, however never happening or the events; if writing 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 &
Preveneir, 2001.)
Testimonies or witnesses, whether oral or written, may have
been created to serve a record or they might have been
created for some purposes. All these describe an event, such
as the records 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 happen and interrelated) as
well as descriptive (telling what happened, when and where,
and who took part).
Besides, the descriptive data as can be describe direct and
immediately from surviving artifacts are only small part of the
periods to which then belongs. A historical context can be
given to them if only they can be placed in human setting.
The lives of human being can be assumed from the retrieved
artifacts, but without further evidence the human contexts of
these artifacts can be never recaptured of any degree of
certainty.
WRITTEN SOURCES OF HISTORY
Written sources are usually categorized in three ways:
(1) narrative or literary
(2) diplomatic or juridical and
(3) social documents.
1. Narrative or literatures are chronicles or tracts presented in
narrative form, written to impart a message whose motives for
their composition vary widely. For example, a scientific tract is
typically composed in order to inform contemporaries or
succeeding generation; a newspaper article might be intended to
shapeopinion; 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).
2 . Diplomatic sources are understood to be those which document/record
an existing legal situation or create a new one, and it is 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).
3. 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.
1. Material evidence, also known as archaeological evidence is
one of the most important unwritten evidences. This includes
artistic creation such as pottery, jewelry, dwellings, grave,
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 significant, such as garbage pits, can provide
valuable information to historians as these can be traces of a former settlement.
Sometimes, archeological sites that are of interest to historians are unearthed
during excavations for road, sewer line, and big building structures. Known
historical sites are purposely excavated with the hope of reconstructing and
understanding their meaningful past.
Moreover, archeological finds such as coins or monies can provide historians
with significant information relating to government transactions during which
the currencies were in circulation.
Similarly, historians can get substantial information from drawings, etching,
paintings, films, and photographs. These are the visual representations of the
past.
Oral evidence is also an important source of information for
historians. Much are told by the tales or sagas of ancient
peoples and the folk songs or popular rituals from the
premodern period of Philippine history. During the present
age, interviews are another major form of oral evidence.
PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY SOURCES
There are two general kinds of historical sources: direct or primary
and indirect or secondary.
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 original and factual, not
interpretive. Their key function is to provide facts. Examples of primary sources are diaries,
journal, letters, newspaper and magazine articles (factual accounts), government records
(census, marriage, military), photographs, maps, postcard, posters, recorded or transcribed
speeches, interviews with participants or witnesses, interviews with people who lived during a
certain time, songs, play, novels, stories, paintings, drawings, and sculptures.
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, literacy criticism, books written by a
third party about a historical event, art and theater reviews, newspaper
or journal articles that interpret.
