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Problem of Authenticity

Historians use several techniques to authenticate historical documents: 1) They investigate materials for anachronisms to test if documents are genuine or forgeries. 2) Documents can become garbled over multiple copies removing them from the original, so historians collect various copies to compare and restore texts. 3) Identifying the author and date of a document is essential for external criticism to determine if facts are credible.

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Sherinne Jane Cariazo
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46 views

Problem of Authenticity

Historians use several techniques to authenticate historical documents: 1) They investigate materials for anachronisms to test if documents are genuine or forgeries. 2) Documents can become garbled over multiple copies removing them from the original, so historians collect various copies to compare and restore texts. 3) Identifying the author and date of a document is essential for external criticism to determine if facts are credible.

Uploaded by

Sherinne Jane Cariazo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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EXCERPT FROM “THE PROBLEM

OF AUTHENTICITY, OR
EXTERNAL CRITICISM”
FORGED OR MISLEADING DOCUMENTS

✓Historical document s are fabricated or forged for


the following reasons namely (a) to bolster a false
claim or title, (b) utilized as a political propaganda,
(c) used as some practical joke, and (d) to mislead
certain contemporaries and subsequent historians
TEST OF AUTHENTICITY
✓To test a hoax from genuine document, the historian
has to use tests that are common also in police and
legal detection.
✓Historians investigate the materials to see whether
they are not anachronistic. They examine the ink for
signs of age or for anachronistic chemical
composition. They also see if they can identify the
handwriting, signature, seal, letterhead, or watermark
of the document.
GARBLED DOCUMENT

✓It is the result of deliberate effort to deceive


people.
✓Documents are garbled because they have to
undergone several stages of reproduction
removed from the original- that is to say, copies of
copies and sometimes copies of translations of
copies of translations of copies, and so on.
THE RESTORATION OF TEXTS

✓Historians are committed to restore texts. Their first


task is to collect as many copies of the dubious text as
diligent search will reveal. Then they are compared.
When the style and content of passages under
discussion may be attributed to the author, it is safe to
assume that they were parts of his original manuscript
but were committed by later copyist; and when they
cannot be attributed to the author, it is safe to assume
that they were not parts of his original manuscript.
IDENTIFICATION OF AUTHOR AND DATE

✓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.
✓Identification of author matters in internal criticism. Even
the most genuine of documents should be regarded as
guilty of deceit until proven innocent.
WHAT IS HISTORICAL FACT?

✓A historical fact thus may be defined as


particular derived directly or indirectly from
historical documents and regarded as
credible after careful testing in accordance
with the canons of historical method.
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 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 also
called “his frame of reference”

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