INTRODUCTION

• History relies heavily on arguments. Historians construct

arguments based on evidence and through the process of
questioning, reasoning and interrogation, there can develop or
reconstruct a knowledge of the past. All good historical writing
is a product of the historians’ arguments and congruently, the
historians’ sources are just as good as their arguments.
TWO MENTAL PROCESSES THAT HISTORIANS FOLLOW
BEFORE THEY FORMULATE THEIR ARGUMENT:
• Authenticity
- It is related to genuineness or external criticism of a historical source.
- It answers questions related to the identity of the author in terms of
personality, character, position and qualifications or disqualifications in writing
the documents.
- It also identifies when, where and how the document was written, and
how does the content relate with other document as well as the evidential
value of the source.
• Credibility or Internal criticism
- Refers to the trustworthiness of the contents of the source.
- This kind of criticism focuses on examining the believability of the contents
of the source, the natural and plausible connection between the document
and the author and the consistency of the document with the authors known
level of gender, socio-economic background, intelligence, political advocacy
and religion.
• Historians employ two levels of historical criticism
namely; external and internal criticism which defines
their historical scholarship according to “ The
Problem of Authenticity and the Problem of
Credibility “ written by louis Gottschalk. In both levels
of criticism historians execute their work with
professionalism.
1. Excerpt From “ The Problem Of Authenticity, Or External
Criticism
• it has been assumed that documents dealt with have
been authentic. The problem of authenticity concerns the
sociologist or psychologist or an anthropologist. Even in the
law courts the question of authenticity of documents
becomes difficult only on rare occasions, when the writer or
witness to the writing cannot be produced. But for historical
documents those occasions are not rare. They are in fact
frequent for manuscript sources; and doubt to authenticity
arises less often for printed sources, it is because usually
some skilled editor has already performed task of
authenticating them.
Forged Or Misleading Documents
• forgeries of documents in whole or in part without being usual, are common
enough to keep the careful historian constantly on his guard.
• “Historical documents” are fabricated for several reasons.
 Sometimes they are used to bolster a false claim or title.
ex. Donation of Constantine, which is used to be cited on occasions to bolster
a theory that popes had a wide territorial claim in the west. But in 1440 Lorenzo
Valla proved chiefly by means of anachronisms of style and illusions, that it
had been forged
 Documents are counterfeited for sale
Ex. Counterfeit letter of Queen Marie Antoinette
A Philadelphia autograph dealer named Robert Spring once
manufactured hundreds of skillful forgeries in order to supply the demand of
collectors.
Sometimes Fabrication is due to less mercenary considerations.
Political Propaganda largely accounts for protocols of the Elders
of Zion, a “document” pretending to reveal a ruthless Jewish conspiracy
to rule the world.
Sometimes Historical “facts” are based only on some practical jokes,
as in case of H.L. Mencken’s much cited article on the “history”
of the bathtub, or of Alexander Woollcott’s mocking letter of
endorsement of Dorothy Parker’s husband.
One example of fabrication of a whole book that has beguiled
even respectable historians is the Memories of Madame d’Epinay.
Sometimes quite genuine documents are intended to misled certain
contemporaries and hence have misled subsequent historians.
• misinterpretations of the nature of printed works
result from editor’s trick.
 The circumstances of the forgery or
misinterpretations of historical documents may often
themselves reveal important political, cultural and
biographical information but not about the same
events or persons as if they were genuine.
 TEST OF AUTHENTICITY
- To distinguish a hoax or misinterpretation from genuine document, the
historian has to use tests that are common also in police and legal detention.

The best guess of the date of the document;

 Historian examines the materials to see whether they are not anachronistic
 The historian also examines the ink for signs of age for anachronistic chemical
composition
The best guess of the possible Author of the document
 He sees if he can identify the handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, or
watermark. Even the handwriting is unfamiliar, it can be compared
authenticated specimens
Techniques used by historian

 “Isographies” - One of the unfulfilled needs of the historian which is the dictionaries
of biography giving example of handwriting.
 Paleography and diplomatic
- first systematized by Mabillon in the seventeenth century
- handwriting and the style and form of official documents were more or less
conventionalized.
• Seals- have been the subject of special study by sigillographers and experts can
detect the faked ones.
• Anachronistic style( idiom, orthography or punctuation) – can be detected by
specialist who are familiar with contemporary writing.
• Anachronistic references to events ( to early or too late or too remote) or the dating
of the document at a time when the alleged writer could not possibly have been at
the place designated(the alibi) uncovers fraud.
GARBLED DOCUMENTS
• A document that in its entirely or in large part is the result of a
deliberate effort to deceive may often be hard to evaluate, but it
sometimes causes less trouble than does the document that is
unauthentic only in small part.
• They occur most frequently in copies of documents whose originals
have disappeared.
• sometimes they are the result , however not for carelessness but of
deliberate intention to modify, supplement, or continue the original.
THE RESTORATION OF TEXTS
• collect as many copies of the dubious text as diligent search will reveal
• Then they are compared

 It is necessary to divide the available copies into one or more falimies. Group of
texts which closely resemble each other and therefore seem to be derived, directly
or indirectly from the same master copy. Then by a comparison of the texts within
each family an effort is made to established the comparative age of each in
relation to the others.
 when the style and contents of the passages under discussion may be attributed to
the author, it is safe to assume that they were part of his original manuscript but
were omitted by later copyist; and when they cannot be attributed to the author, it
is safe to assume that they were not part of his original manuscript. The original text
can be approximately or entirely restored.
IDENTIFICATION OF AUTHOR AND OF DATES
• Identification of the author and date is essential in
performing external criticism.
• Historians need to determine the author’s location in time
and space and as to his habits, attitudes, character,
learning, associates etc. Otherwise it would be impossible to
prove or disprove authenticity by anachronisms,
handwriting, style, alibi or other tests that are associated
with the author’s milieu, personality and action.
 THE PROBLEM OF CREDIBILITY, OR INTERNAL
CRITICISM
• historian first aims in the examination of testimony to obtain a set of particulars relevant to
some topic or question that he has in mind. Isolated particulars have little meaning by
themselves
What is Historical fact?
- historians are always concerned in examining and understanding historical fact. In
the process of analyzing historical fact, the historian should constantly keep in mind the
relevant particulars within the document rather than the document as a whole.
- he determines the credibility of each particular whether it actually happened or
not.
- In examining the credibility of a document, it is not inconceivable that two
historians of equal ability and training would extract the same isolated “facts” and agree
with each other’s findings in dealing with the same document.
• A historical fact thus may be defined as a particular derived directly or indirectly from
historical documents and regarded as credible after careful testing in accordance with
the canons of historical method
 THE INTERROGATIVE HYPOTHESIS
• In analyzing a document for it’s isolated “facts” the historian should
approach it with a question or a set of questions in mind. The questions may
be relatively noncommittal.
• In each of these questions a certain implication is assumed to be true and
further clarification of it is sought on an additional working assumptions.
• Putting the hypothesis In interrogative form is more judicious than putting it in
declarative form if for no other reason than that it is noncommittal before all
the evidence has been examined.
• it may also help in some small way to solve the delicate problem of
relevance of subject matter, since only those materials are relevant which
lead directly to an answer to the question or indicate that there is no
satisfactory answer.
 THE QUEST FOR PARTICULAR DETAILS OF
TESTIMONY
• The quest for particular details of testimony is essential in conducting internal
criticism. Every historical subject has four aspects; BIOGRAPHICAL, THE
GEOGRAPHICAL,THE CHRONOLOGICAL AND THE OCCUPATIONAL OR
FUNCTIONAL. With as set of names, dates, and key-words in mind for each of
these aspects, the historical investigator combs his document for the
relevant particulars. It is generally wise to take notes on relevant matter
whether or not it at first appears credible. It may turn out that even false or
mistaken testimony has relevance to an understanding of one’s problem
• having accumulated his notes, the investigator must now separate the
credible from incredible. Even from his “notes” he has sometimes to extract
still smaller details.. In detailed investigations, few documents are significant
as a whole. The general reliability of an author has significance only as
establishing the probable credibility of his particular statements. From the
process of scrupulous analysis emerges an important general rule: for each
particular of a document, the process of establishing credibility should be
separately undertaken regardless of the general credibility of the author.
 IDENTIFICATION OF AUTHOR
• Identifications of author matters in internal criticism. Even the most genuine
documents should be regarded as guilty of deceit until proven innocent. The
importance of first establishing the author’s general reliability is therefore
obvious. Where the name of the author can be determined and he is a
person about whom biographical data are available, identification is
relatively easy task.
• the historian is obliged to use documents written by persons about whom
nothing or relatively little is known.
• If the author’s name is unknown, the historian must depend upon the
document itself to learn much about him/her
 DETERMINATION OF APPROXIMATE DATE
• Determination of Approximate date is a requirement for internal criticism.
• if the date is unknown in the document, one has to resort to the conjectures
known to the historian as the terminus non-post quem (“the point not after
which”). These termini, or points have to be established by internal evidence-
by clues given within the document itself.
• some document might not permit even a remote guess of their termini, but
where the author is known, one has at least the dates of his birth and death
to go by
 THE PERSONAL EQUATION
• the ability and the willingness of a witness to give dependable testimony are
determined by a number of factors in his personality and social situation that
together are sometimes called his “Personal Equation”, a term applied to the
correction required in astronomical observations to allow for the habitual
inaccuracy of individual observers.
• The personal equation of a historian is sometimes called “ his frame of
reference” but it probably will be found more expedient to restrict the latter
terms to his conscious philosophy or philosophies of life in so far they can be
divorced from personality traits and biases of which he may or may not be
aware.
 GENERAL RULES
• In a law court it is frequently assumed that all the testimony of a witness is
suspect if the opposing lawyers can impugn his general character.
• the historian is a prosecutor, attorney for the defense, judge and jury all in
one. But as judge he rules out no evidence whatever if it is relevant. To him
any single detail of testimony is credible even if it is contained in a document
obtained by force or fraud, or otherwise impeachable, or based on hearsay
evidence, or is from an interested witness- provided it can pass four test;
 was the ultimate source of the detail ( the primary witness) able to tell the truth/
 was the primary witness willing to tell the truth?
 is the primary witness accurately reported with regard to the detail under
examination?
 is there any independent corroboration of the detail under examination?
Any detail(regardless of what the source or who the author) that passes all four
tests is credible evidence. It will bear repetition that the primary witness and the
detail are now subjects of examination, not the source as a whole.
 ABILITY TO TELL THE TRUTH
The ability to tell the truth rest upon the following:

 Witness’s nearness to the event

 competence of witness
 degree of attention
 leading question
 circular argument
 egocentrism
 WILLINGNESS TO TELL THE TRUTH
Several conditions that influences willingness to tell the truth:

 witness’s interest
 witness’s bias
 desire to please or displease an intended audience
 literary style
 laws and conventions
 conventions and formalities
 witness’s expectation or anticipation