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Readings in
Philippine History

Lecture 4:
The Source: The
Basis of Our
Knowledge about
the Past
By Martha Howell & Walter
Prevenier
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Learning Agenda

 What is a source?
 What are source typologies, their evolution and
complementarity?
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1.What is a Source?
 Artifacts that have been left by the past
1) Relics: “remains”
2) Testimonies of witnesses to the past
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Relics or remains
• Offers a clue about the
past by virtue of their
existence
E.g. Wooden columns in
prehistoric settlements =
culture
• Compare with other
places = (commercial or
intellectual relations)
e.g. Cycladen island of
Santorini and Crete (frescos)
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Testimonies
• Oral or written reports (event)
• Simple or complex
(e.g. record of property exchange,
donations, speeches, commentaries)
• Historical information that
provide:
What happened?
How and in what circumstances the
event occurred?
Why it occurred?
• Historian supplements the raw
material available in the source
itself
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Relics and testimonies

 Created for specific purpose of the age
 Relics: objects of practical use => historical source
 Testimonies: oral or written contemporary proof of an
act or a right; inform about a fact; content more
important than its form
 Historian’s principal task:
 to uncover the original purpose or function of the relics
or testimonies that have come down to posterity
 to divine what they were intended to serve and what
purposes they actually served at the time they were
created
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Testimonies and artifacts

 ORIGINALLY TO SERVE AS RECORDS => intentional
 Other purpose => unintentional
e.g. Kennedy’s assassination filmed for private enjoyment
 No historical question in mind

 Historians: to consider the conditions under which

source produced = Intentions that motivated it
1. reliability
2. historical context

 Historical and historiographical contexts: the HEART OF

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
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Testimonies and artifacts

 ORIGINALLY TO SERVE AS RECORDS => intentional
 Other purpose => unintentional
e.g. Kennedy’s assassination filmed for private enjoyment
 No historical question in mind

 Historians: to consider the conditions under which

source produced = Intentions that motivated it
1. reliability
2. historical context

 Historical and historiographical contexts: the HEART OF

HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
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Example: Birth of Filipino Nationalism

Execution
Rizal’s writingof
ofthe
the
GOMBURZA
Noli Me Tangere and in
El Filibusterismo
1872

A.
Bo
nif
aci
o’s
Re
vo
lut
io
na
ry
M
ov
em
ent
(K
ati
pu
na
n)
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SOURCES
 MATERIALS from which historians construct meanings
 object from the past or testimony which historians depend
>>>> create own depiction of the past
 Historical work or interpretation is the result
• E.g. Diary is the source (colonial New England)>>>> a
Midwife’s Tale 1990 by Laurel Tatcher Ulrich
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Another example:
 Fr. Schumacher’s using
Rizal’s writings as a
framework to write his
essays on Filipino
nationalism

 Source provides existence of

an event; a historical
interpretation is an
argument about the event
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Primary sources
 Direct or indirect
 Direct Primary Source:
e.g. letters or chronicles from
18th century businessman
• law code written in 846
• Poem penned yesterday
 Indirect source:
e.g. 18th century inventory
listing the letters and books
found in an educated
woman’s study
 Scholars could deduce
about the kind of training
she had received and her
intellectual interests
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Unclear boundary between a source and a

historical study
 Not always clear
 Herodotus & Thucydides:
 both historians of their ages
 creators of historical interpretations
 authors of sources in that they provide modern historians
evidence both about these events and about the intellectual
culture of the ages in which they wrote
 Sources of former historians ---lost >>>their historical
interpretation becomes “source of sources”
 Historian’s task: to distinguish carefully information
from source itself or a personal interpretation of the
material
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Example of primary source :

indirect
 Church history left by Eusebius
of Caesaria (265-340)
 MENTIONS countless texts
lost
 Interpreting first Christian
history
 HISTORIANS: for the literal
content of a citation---what is
transcribed from the source
itself—historians have no
ethical responsibility
• Accountable for the meaning
they impart to that material
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B. Source Typologies, Their Evolution and

Complementarity

WRITTEN SOURCES TRIPARTITE SCHEME:

1. Narrative or “literary”
2. Diplomatic/juridical
3. Social documents
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1) Narrative or literary
 Chronicles or tracts presented
in a narrative form (written)
• To impart a particular
message
• Motives for their composition
vary widely
a) SCIENTIFIC TRACT-
inform contemporaries or
succeeding generations
b) NEWSPAPER- shape
opinion
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c) EGO DOCUMENT (personal

narratives)
• e.g. diary or memoir - justice of
the author’s action
d) FILM or NOVEL- to entertain
e) MORAL TEACHING –
religious cause
f) BIOGRAPHY- praise the
subject’s worth or achievement
 NARRATIVE SOURCE:
broader than “fiction” like
novels and poetry
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On questions of intentionality
 “EGO DOCUMENTS”
E.g.1 diaries: almost never treated as reliable reports about an
event; must be read in terms of the very individual perspectives
from which they were written >>> “intellectual author”

E.g.2. memories: selective accounts>>>highly edited accounts of

the life being recorded

 Ego documents: record the author’s perception of events

(author’s experiences) >>>>tells the writer’s political intentions
and tactics, ideology and culture of the age
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2. Diplomatic Sources
 Once treated as best source
 Classic diplomatic source: Charter; a “legal
instrument”
Urkunde (German); charte or diplome (France)
 Usually sealed/authenticated; intended to provide
evidence of the COMPLETION OF A LEGAL
TRANSACTION, proof of juristic fact, serve as
evidence in judicial proceeding
a. Issued by public authorities (kings pope, congress)
b. Private parties (will or mortgage agreement)
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3 parts of a diplomatic
source
1. PROTOCAL
2. CONTENT ITSELF
3. CLOSING

FUNCTIONS
• LAWGIVING= ordinances, declaration of law, statutes
• JURIDICAL=judgements of courts
• VOLUNTARY AGREEMENTS= contracts, wills, social
agreements
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3. Social Documents
 Products of record keeping bureaucracy such as state
ministries, charitable organizations, foundations,
churches and schools
 Content information: Economic, social, political and
judicial import (ambassador’s reports, municipal
accounts, findings of a commission)
 Account particular charges, meetings, business policy
fiscal structure, social structure, political administration
 HISTORIAN: NOT THE ONLY KIND OF SOURCE;
UNWRITTEN/ORAL ARE ALSO IMPORTANT
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Archaeological evidence
 One of the most important category of unwritten
evidence
 Tells: Culture, way of life, ambitions, commercial,
socio cultural interconnections
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 Coin hoards, paper currencies= government,

economic condition, trade relations, fiscal policy
 ORAL EVIDENCE= TALES AND SAGAS OF
ANCIENT PEOPLE
 PROTEST SONGS, ARTISTIC
PERFORMANCES
 Historian: use depends upon period being
studied (oral or material)
 Modern scholars use a mixture of oral, written,
and other sources as the situation requires
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 Technological innovations
• 3000 B.C. writing was invented
• 12th century written communication was dominant
• Writing and printing
• ORAL WRITTEN MATERIAL SOURCES MIXTURE
• 1900 FILMS, DOCUMENTARIES
• SOUND RECORDINGS 1887
• 1980S COMPACT DISC
• RADIO 1896
• TAPE RECORDER 1931
• TELEVISION 1927 (LONDON 1936, NEW YORK 1941)
• 1940-1970- WIDELY USED IN THE WORLD
• COMPUTER 1983- LOST RECORDS (risk of erasure and
inaccessibility) 1983 U.S. using Japanese technology
• political and financial commitment
 All complementary
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 Jan Vansina, Flemish historian teaching in US

 One of the first to recognize the relation of oral traditions to
written texts
 Contributed to historical methodology
 Student of West African culture: stories handed down are stable
and reliable like written chronicles and personal narratives that
survived Western European past
 Several tests: a) external to text?
(narrator/writer member of the group?)
b) internal: reporter’s tale conform to the
linguistic, stylistic, ritualistic norms of the period
 Oral testimonies verifiable?
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 War and historical accounts social upheaval

e.g. Al Santoli of the Vietnam War
33 veterans never made it to official documents
(personal account that cannot be written)
 INTERVIEW- NO SIMPLE ART
• carefully designed questions
• flexible interviewer
• hard interviews-real value to historian
• soft interviews
 FACT FINDING EXPEDITION WITH EXTREME CARE
Story becomes richer, more nuanced more understandable, not
where innocence is proven or cause vindicated
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Additional notes:

In the study of history as an academic discipline, a

primary source (also called an original source or
evidence) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript,
autobiography, recording, or any other source of
information that was created at the time under study.
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Sreedharan believes that primary sources

have the most direct connection to the past
and that they "speak for themselves" in
ways that cannot be captured through the
filter of secondary sources.
---Sreedharan, E. (2004). A Textbook of Historiography,
500 B.C. to A.D. 2000. Orient Longman. p. 302. ISBN
81-250-2657-6.
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Are quotes primary sources?

 NO
• They have been removed from the original
document by someone else.
• FIND THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT
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