Evaluating Primary Sources

Javier Ergueta

December, 2011

Primary evidence

• Information related to an event, provided by a contemporary observer– Directly or in recorded form

• Contemporary material evidence related to an event– A setting where the event took place– A object present or produced at the event

X happened, and left a trace of YA observed itB recorded itC interprets it and writes itD publishes itE reads itF teaches itG learns it

History

“Ozymandias” by Percy B. Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away".

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Types of primary evidence

• Geographical features

• Archaelogical remains

• Biological traces

• Linguistic patterns

• Artistic and textual records

• Oral traditions

Evaluating primary sources

• They seem to offer evidence that is as close as possible to the event

• But one needs to question:– Authenticity: Is the source what it seems

to be?– Reliability: Does the source provide solid

grounding for one’s area of research?

“No opinion can be trusted; even the facts may be nothing

but a printer's error.”

– W. C. Williams

Authenticity: Is it what it seems?

• Internal evidence:– Consistent with known methods &

materials of the period?

• External evidence:– Probability of its being produced?– Is its production consistent with other

events? With known facts?

Metternich’s account of a meeting with Emperor Napoleon, 1813:

“Such a man as I does not care a snap of the fingers for the lives of a million men…France has no reason to complain. To spare France, I have sacrificed Germans and Poles. In Russia I lost three hundred thousand men, but only a tenth of them were Frenchmen.” – Napoleon

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Notable Historic Frauds

• The Donation of Constantine

• Ossian’s poems

• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

• Piltdown Man

• Hitler’s Diaries

Reliability: Does it reflect the truth?

• Who produced it?

• What role did he play? In a position to know? To care?

• What POV or bias is evident?

• Is it internally consistent?

• Consistent with other documents from period?

From a book review by Camillo di Cavour, May, 1846:

“A democratic revolution has no chance of success in Italy. Active power resides almost exclusively in the middle class and part of the upper class, both of which groups have ultra-conservative interests to defend. All true friends of the country must therefore reject such means as useless. They must recognize that they cannot truly help their fatherland except by gathering in support of legitimate monarchs who have their roots deep in the national soil.”

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Typical limitations

• Takes one perspective, limited by POV

• Emotionally involved

• Self-interest involved

• Caught up in biases of own time

Primary

sources

Primary sources are by definition close to the event examined and are likely to be very biased. Yet all secondary sources ultimately rely on primary ones, so the proper response to much bias is not to dismiss the source entirely, but rather to treat it appropriately: One needs to corroborate possibly biased information, confirm its accuracy by comparison with other sources.

Typical kinds of value

• Contemporary evidence of “who-what-where”

• Contemporary interpretation of significance and meaning of events

• Unique insight into the mind of the observer/recorder

Primary

sources

Hierarchy of primary sources

• Original language > translation • Unwitting record > intentional record• Manuscript > printed• Original > copy• Traditional > non-traditional• Written > oral• Official > unofficial• Pure primary > partially secondary (eg.

contemporary histories, autobiography)

“Let the science and research of the historian find the fact

and let his imagination and art make clear its significance.”

– George Trevelyan

“No document can tell us more than what the author of the document thought–what

he thought had happened, what he thought ought to happen or would

happen, or perhaps only what he wanted others to think he thought, or even only

what he himself thought he thought. None of this means anything until the

historian has got to work on it and deciphered it.”

– E. H. Carrr