READINGS

IN
PHILIPPINE
HISTORY
THE MEANING OF HISTORY,

CHAPTER 1 SOURCES OF HISTORICAL DATA,

& HISTORICAL CRITICISMS

OVERVIEW

Lesson 1 introduces history as a discipline and as a narrative. It discusses the limitation of

historical knowledge, history as the subjective process of re-creation and historical method and
historiography. Lesson 2 presents the sources of historical data, the written and non-written
sources of history as well as the differentiation of primary and secondary sources of
information or data. Lesson 3 discusses historical criticisms, namely, external and internal
criticisms. These are important aspects in ascertaining the authenticity and reliability of primary
sources upon which narratives are crafted.
 LESSON 1

THE
ING OF HISTORY
MEAN

History is derived from the Greek word historia which means learning by inquiry. The
Greek philosopher, Aristotle, looked upon history as the systematic accounting of a set of natural
phenomena, that is, taking into consideration the chronological arrangement of the account. This
explained that knowledge is derived through conducting a process of scientific investigation of
past events.

The word History is referred usually for accounts of phenomena, especially human affairs
in chronological order. These are theories constructed by historians in investigating history: the
factual history and the speculative history. Factual history presents readers the plain and basic
information vis-à-vis the events that took place (what), the time and date with which the events
happened (when), the place with which the events took place and the people that were involved
(who). Speculative history on the other hand, goes beyond facts because it is concerned about the
reasons for which events happened (why), and the way they happened (how). "It tries to
speculate on the cause and effect of an event." (Cantal, Cardinal, Espino & Galindo, 2014)

History deals with the study of past events. Individuals who write about history are
called historians. They seek to understand the present by examining what went before. They
undertake arduous historical research to come up with a meaningful and organized rebuilding of
the past. But whose past are we talking about? This is the basic questions that the historian needs
to answer because this sets the purpose and framework of a historical account. Hence, a salient
feature of historical writing is the facility to give meaning and impact value to the group of
people about their past. The practice of historical writing is called historiography, the traditional
method in doing historical research that focus on gathering of documents from different libraries
and archives to form a pool of evidence needed in making a descriptive or analytical narrative.
The modern historical writing does not only include examination of documents but also the use
of research methods from related areas of study such as archeology and geography.

THE LIMITATION OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

The incompleteness of record has limited man’s knowledge of history. Most human
affairs happen without leaving any evidence or records of any kind, no artifacts, or if there are,
no further evidence of the human setting in which to place surviving artifacts. Although it may
have happened, but the past has perished forever with only occasional traces. The whole history
of the past (called history-as-actuality) can be known to a historian only through the surviving
records (history-as-record), and most of history-as-record is only a tiny part the whole
phenomenon. Even the archeological and anthropological discoveries are only small parts
discovered from the total past.
 Historians study the records or evidences that survived the time. They tell history from
what they understood a credible part of the record. However, their claims many remains variable
as there can be historical records that could be discovered, which may affirm on refute those that
they have already presented. This explains the “incompleteness” of the “object” that the
historians study.

HISTORICAL AS THE SUBJECTIVE PROCESS OF RE-CREATION

From the incomplete evidence, historians strive to restore the total part of mankind. They
do it from the point of view that human beings live in different times and that their experiences
maybe somehow comparable, or that their experiences may have significantly differed
contingent on the place and time. For the historians, history becomes only that part of the human
past which can be meaningfully reconstructed from the available records and from inference
regarding their setting.

In short, historian’s aim is verisimilitude (the truth, authenticity, plausibility) about a

past. Unlike the study of the natural science that has objectively measurable phenomena, the
study of history is subjective process as documents and relics are scattered and do not together
comprise the total object that the historian is studying. Some of the natural scientists, such as
geologists and paleo-zoologists who study fossils from the traces of a perished past, greatly
resemble historians in this regard, but they differ at certain points since historians deal with
human testimonies as well as physical traces.

HISTORICAL METHOD AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

The process of critically examining and analyzing the records and survivals of the past is
called historical method. The imaginative reconstruction of the past form the data derived
historiography. By means of historical and historiography (both of which are frequently grouped
together simply as historical method), he historian endeavors to reconstruct as much of the past
of mankind as he/she can. Even in this limited effort, however, the historian handicapped.
He/she rarely can tell the story even of a part of the past as it occurred. For the past conceived
of as something “actually occurred” places obvious limits upon the kinds of record and of
imagination that the historians may use. These limits distinguish history from fiction, poetry,
drama and fantasy.

Historical analysis is also an important element of historical method. In historical

analysis, historians: (1) select the subject to investigate; (2) collect the probable sources of
information on the subject; (3) examine the sources of genuineness, in part of in whole; and (4)
extract credible “particulars” from the sources (or parts of sources). The synthesis of the
“particulars” thus derived is historiography. Synthesis and analysis cannot be entirely separated
since they have a common ground, which is the ability to understand the past through some
meaningful, evocative and convincing historical or cross-disciplinary connections between a
given historical issue and other historical contexts, periods, or themes.
EXERCISE 1.1

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

Match the item in column A with the item in column B. Write the letter of the correct answer in
the space provided before the number.

A B

1. Incompleteness of record has limited man’s

A. Verisimilitude
knowledge of history.
B. Historia
2. There are raw materials out of which history may be
C. Interpretative
written.
D. Historical Impartiality
3. This historical method historian instigate, collect
E. Historiography
and examines sources
F. Artifacts or Documents
4. Historian ability to reconstruct historical events
G. Limitation of historical
5. Historian aim of searching the truth, authenticity
knowledge
and plausibility
H. Aristotle
6. Object or things that have since been forgotten or the
I. Historical Method
experience of generation being dead
J. Historical Analysis
7. The practice of historical writing
K. Historical Bias
8. Learning by inquiry
9. Historical objectivity
10. The process of critically examining and analyzing the
records and survival of the past
EXERCISE 1.2

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

Give concise explanation/ discussion of the following items.

1. How important historical writings are to a person group/ race and country? Explain.

2. Discuss the importance of historical analysis

3. How do you give meaning to a so called “history”? Explain.

4. Explain the difference between factual history and speculative history

 LESSON 2

OFSOURCE
HISTORICAL DATA
S

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 shape
 opinion; 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.

2. 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.

1. 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.

2. 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.
EXERCISE 1.3

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

Encircle the letters of your sources

1. These are original historical sources.

A. E C. Primary Sources
B. Descriptive sources D. Interpretative Sources
2. This evidence is considered as material evidence
A. Recordings C. Diaries
B. Archeological D. Books
3. Historian console these inquires as document/ records and existing legal
evidence as the best source
A. Relics C. Oral sources
B. Remains D. Diplomatic sources
4. The third part of diplomatic source. The attention of those reasonable for the
documents, which map to the author, writer, composer and witnessed to the
A. M C. Contest
B. Protocol D. Negotiable
5. These historical sources are material by nature
A. Unwritten sources C. Written sources
B. Reliable source D. Talons
6. The product of record keeping of history which serve as information
A. Minutes C. Formulas
B. Social documents D. Content
7. This is a examples of primary sources
A. Newspapers C. Painting
B. Electronic data D. Tape records
8. What is the historical track typically composed to inform
A. Narrative C. Judicial tracks
B. Literature D. Scientific track
9. These are material made by people long after the events being
A. Primary source C. Scientifics sources
B. Diplomatic source D. Secondary sources
10. Which is not example of primary source
A. W C. A birth certificate
B. Letters D. A photograph
EXERCISE 1.4

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

Give concise explanation/ discussion of the following items.

1. What are the benefits of using primary sources

2. Do you affirm that primary sources are superior to secondary sources? Explain

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of accessing secondary sources?

 LESSON 3

ALHISTORIC
CRITICISMS

Historical criticism examines the origins of earliest text to appreciate the underlying
circumstances upon which the text came to be (Soulen and Soulen,2001).It has two important
goals: First ,to discover the original meaning of the text in its primitive or historical context and
it's literal sense or sensus literalis historicus. Second, is to establish a reconstruction of the
historical situation of the author and recipient of the text. Historical criticism has two types,
external criticism and internal criticism.

Historical criticism has its roots in the 17th century during the Protestant Reformation
and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th century (Ebeling, 1963).The absence of
historical investigation paved the way for historical criticism to rest on philosophical and
theological interpretation. The passing of time has advance historical criticism into various
methodologies used today such as source criticism (which analyze and studies the sources used
by biblical author), form criticism (which seek to determine a unit original from and historical
context of the literary tradition), redaction criticism (which regards the author of the text as
editor of the source material), tradition criticism (which attempt to trace the developmental stage
of the oral tradition from its historical emergence to its literary presentation), canonical
criticism (which focuses its interpretation of the Bible on the text of biblical cannon), and related
methodologies (Soulen,2001).

There are two parts of a historical criticism. The first part is to determine the authenticity
of the material, also called provenance of the source .The critics should determine the origin of
the material, its author, and the source of information used. External criticism is used in
determining these facts .The second part is to weigh the testimony to the truth .The critic must
examine the trustworthiness of the testimony as well as determine the probability of the
statement to be true. This process is called internal criticism or higher criticism since it deals
with more important matter than the external form .

1. External Criticism determines the authenticity of the source. The authenticity of the
material may be tested in two ways, by paleographical (the deciphering and dating of
historical manuscript) and diplomatic criticism (critical analysis of historical documents
to understand how the document came to be, the information transmitted, and the
relationship between the facts purported in the document and the reality).The material
must be investigated based on the time and place it is written. The critic must determine
whether the material under investigation is raw, meaning unaltered, and it exists exactly
as the author left it.
 The content must be viewed in every possible angle, as forgery was not unknown during
the Middle Ages. The authority of the material can be examined from other genuine
sources having the same subject or written during the same period. The similarities or
agreements and differences or disagreement of some common details, such as the culture
and traditions, and events during the period by which the document was made can be a
basis for judging the authenticity of the text.

2. Internal criticism determines the historicity of the facts contained in the documents. It is
not necessary to prove the authenticity of the material or document. However, the facts
contained in the document must first be tested before any conclusion pertaining to it can
be admitted. In determining the value of the facts, the character of the sources, the
knowledge of the author, and the influences prevalent at the time of writing must be
careful investigated. It must be ascertained first that the critic knows exactly what the
author said and that he/she understands the documents from the standpoint of the author.
Moreover, the facts given by the author or writer must be firmly established as having
taken place exactly as reported.

TEST OF AUTHENTICITY
To distinguish a hoax a misrepresentation from a genuine document, the historian must
use tests common in police and legal detection. Making the best guess if the date of the
documents, he/she examines the materials to see whether they are not anachronistic: paper was
rare in Europe before the fifteenth century, and printing was unknown; pencils did not exist
before the 16th century; typewriting was not invented until the 19th century; and Indian paper
came only at the end of that century. The historian also examines the inks for signs of age or of
anachronistic chemical composition.

Making the best guess of the possible author of the document, he/she sees of he/she can
identify the handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, or watermarked. Even when the handwriting
is unfamiliar, it can be compared with authenticated specimens. One of the unfulfilled needs of
the historian is more of what the French call "isographies" or the dictionaries of biography
giving examples of handwriting. For some period of history, experts using techniques known as
paleography and diplomatics have long known that in certain regions at certain times
handwriting and the style and form of official documents were conventionalized. The disciplines
of paleography and diplomatics were founded in 17th century by Dom Jean Mabillon, a French
Benedictine monk and scholar of the Congregation of Saint Maur. Seals have been the subject of
special study by sigillographers, and experts can detect fake ones. Anachronistic style (idiom,
orthography, or punctuation) can be detected by specialists who are familiar with
cotemporary writing. Often spelling particularly of proper names and signatures, reveal forgery
as would also unhistoric grammar.

Anachronistic references or events (too early or too late er too remote) or the shafting of
a document at a time when the alleged writer could not possibly have been at all place
designated (the alibi) uncovers Fraud sometimes skillful forger has all the a copy in certain
passages: by skillful paraphrase and invention he/she given away by the absence trivia and
otherwise unknown details from his/her manufactured account. However, usually if the
document is where it ought to be (e.g. in a family's archives, of incomprehensible in the
governmental bureau’s record) its provenance (costudy, as the lawyers refer to it), creates a
presumption of its genuineness (Gottsschalk, 1969).
EXERCISE 1.5

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

Identify what is being described in the following items.

1. It determines the authenticity of the source

2. This is considered of or misinterpretation from the genuine
document.
3. It is a dictionary of biography that gives examples of handwriting.
4. It is historical real that has been subject of special study of expert
5. This means that the historical texts are primitives and historical context in the
primitive sense.
6. This criticism deals with more important matters than the external form
7. This refers to the time’s century when historical criticism was properly
formed
8. It determines the historicity of the fact contained in the document
9. This refers so the time/ century when historical typewriting was
invented
10. This refers to the era when historical forgery was not known
EXERCISE 1.7

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

Give concise explanation/ discussion of the following items.

1. What is historical criticism?

2. Discuss the importance of historical criticism?

3. Do you believe that writing history is subjective? Why? Explain

4. How can the writing of history be objective? Explain

EXERCISE 1.8

Name: Date:

Course and Year: Score:

A. Identify/define the following terms

1. History

2. Historical writings

3. Verisimilitude

4. Historiography

5. Historical analysis

6. Paleography

7. Diplomatic

8. Sigillography

9. Historical criticism

10. Test of authenticity

B. Distinguish between primary and secondary sources of historical data. Give at least
10 examples under each category.

Primary Sources Secondary Sources

Examples of primary sources Examples of secondary sources

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 5

6 6

7 7

8 8

9 9

10 10