MODULE 2
I. Title: Sources of Historical Data
II. Introduction:
This topic deals on the definition and meaning of historical data. It also tackles things such
as artifacts, relics or remains and testimonies of witnesses as sources of historical data.
Written and unwritten categories of source of history are also part of the discussion. The
distinction between primary and secondary sources of data will also be examined.
III. Learning Outcomes:
1. To define what are historical data.
2. To identify the written and unwritten sources of data.
3. To describe that different sources of historical data.
4. To distinguish primary sources from secondary sources of data.
IV. Lesson Proper:
A. Historical Data
Historical data are sourced from artifacts that have been left by the past. These artifacts can
either be relics or remains, or the testimonies of the witnesses of 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 a testimony concerning the past on which historians
depend 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 an event, and a historical interpretation is an argument
about the event.
Historical source (also known as historical material or historical data) is original source
that contain important historical information. These sources are something that inform us
about history at the most basic level,[1] and these sources used as clues in order to study
history.
Historical sources include documents, artifacts, archaeological sites, features. oral
transmissions, stone inscriptions, paintings, recorded sounds, images (photographs, motion
pictures), and oral history. Even ancient relics and ruins, broadly speaking, are historical
sources.
What are Relics?
Relic derives from the Latin reliquiae, meaning "remains", and a form of the Latin verb
relinquere, to "leave behind, or abandon". A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more
religious relics.
Relics or “remains” whose existence offer 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 archaeological or
anthropological remains.
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What are Testimonies of Witnesses?
Testimonies of witnesses, whether oral or written, may have been created to serve as
records or they might have been created for some others purposes. All these describe an
event, such as the record of a property exchange, speeches, and commentaries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C129XLpTbo
B. Written Sources of History
Written sources of data are usually categorized in three ways: (1) narrative or literary, (2)
diplomatic or juridical, and (3) social documents
(1) Narrative or literature are chronicles tracts presented in narrative form, written to
impart a message whose motives for their composition vary widely.
Examples:
A scientific tract is typically composed in order to inform contemporaries or succeeding
generations.
A newspaper article might be intended to shape opinion.
An 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 action.
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
(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 is a legal instrument. A legal document is usually sealed or authenticated to
provide evidence that a legal transactions 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 device and images for internal properties, which are determined by
the norms of laws and by tradition.
(3) Social documents are information pertaining to economic, social, political or judicial
significance. They are records kept by bureaucracies.
Examples:
Government reports (municipal accounts)
Research findings
Parliamentary procedures
Civil registry records
Property registers
Records of census
C. Non-Written Sources of History
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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.
Examples:
Artistic creations such as pottery, jewelry, dwellings, graves, churches, roads, drawings,
paintings, films and photographs
(2) Oral Evidence is also an important source of information for historians. Much are told by
the tales or sagas of ancient people and the folk songs,
and the folk songs or popular rituals from the pre-modern period of Philippine history.
During the present age, interviews is another major form of oral evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkxmsCg7e2w
D. Primary versus Secondary Sources
There are two general kinds of historical sources: direct or primary and indirect or
secondary.
(1) Primary sources
These 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
introspective. Their key function is to provide facts
Examples:
diaries
journals
letters
recorded speeches
paintings
etc.
(2) Secondary sources
These 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:
biographies
histories
literary criticisms
books written by a third party about a historical event
art and theater reviews
etc.
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