An independent guide to working with historical sources. It has no connection with the former website on this domain, with politicians, parties or public authorities, and it is not political advocacy material.
History
People have always told stories about the past, but the question "how do you know?" did not become central for historians straight away. This page traces a brief path from ancient narratives, where truth sat alongside legend, to archival scholarship, which demanded that every claim rest on documents and that every witness be checked.
The history of source study is the history of one stubborn question: who actually saw this with their own eyes?
How we chose the material: we highlight the stages at which the standards of evidence about the past changed noticeably. We give only verified dates and names and describe everything else in general terms.
Six steps through which our modern attitude to evidence took shape.
A Greek author of the 5th century BC who has been called "the father of history" since Cicero. He gathered stories from many peoples and often noted that he was passing on what he had heard without vouching for its truth.
The author of the History of the Peloponnesian War tried to rely on what could be verified and treated rumour far more strictly than his predecessors. He became the model of the exacting historian.
In the Middle Ages the past was recorded mainly by chroniclers. They copied earlier texts, added to them and rarely separated their own observations from what others reported.
Later, experts in old manuscripts learned to compare copies of the same text, spot later insertions and expose forged charters through language and turns of phrase that did not fit the period.
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) urged historians to show the past "as it actually was" (wie es eigentlich gewesen) and to rely on archival documents. His approach shaped many historians of the 19th century.
With photography and the mass press, the range of evidence grew sharply. Historians had to learn to read pictures, newspapers and the private papers of ordinary people as carefully as old manuscripts.
Old photos (in Russian)
At each step, more was demanded of whoever supplied the information and of the circumstances in which they did so. An ancient storyteller could frankly admit to repeating hearsay; an archival historian was expected to produce the document and explain why it could be trusted.
Yet the older accounts did not lose their value. They became sources in their own right: they show how people of their time understood the past, what they thought important and what they preferred to leave unsaid.
Key dates in the history of sources: from antiquity to a modern archive law.
Herodotus, Thucydides, Ranke and the professions that archival work depends on.
Key ideas for working with the past: source, testimony, attribution, dating, provenance, context.
Types of sources, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to cite them.
Specific dates and facts in this guide come from encyclopaedic works and official programme descriptions; everything else is described in general terms. Dates for old documents are almost always approximate, and we try to state plainly how certain we are.