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Why Study History Through Primary Sources?

Source: James Harvey Robinson, "The Historical Point of View" in Readings in European History, Vol. I (Boston: Ginn, 1904), 1-13.

The Sources of History
It is clear that all our information in regard to past events and conditions must be derived from evidence of some kind. This evidence is called the source. Sometimes there are a number of good and reliable sources for an event, as, for example, for the decapitation of King Charles I of England in 1649, or for the march of Napoleon into Russia. Sometimes there is but a single, unreliable source, as, for instance, in the case of the burial of King Alaric in a river bed. For a great many important matters about which we should like to know there are, unfortunately, no written sources at all, and we can only guess how things were. For example, we do not know what the Germans were doing before Julius Caesar came into contact with them and took the trouble to give a brief account of them. We can learn but little about the bishops of Rome (or popes) before the time of the Emperor Constantine for few references to them have come down to us.

Few, however, of those who read and study history ever come into contact with the primary, or firsthand sources; they get their information at second hand. It is much more convenient to read what the modern historian Edward Gibbon says of Constantine than to refer to Eusebius, Eutropius and other ancient writers from whom he gained knowledge. Moreover, Gibbon carefully studied and compared all the primary sources, and it may be urged that he has given a truer, fuller, and more attractive account of the period than can be found in any one of them. His Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is certainly a work of the highest rank; but, nevertheless, it is only report of others' reports. It is therefore not a primary but a secondary source.

The Problem of Secondhand Knowledge
Most of the historical knowledge current among students is not, however, derived from even secondary sources such as Gibbon and similar authoritative writers, but comes from the reading of textbooks, encyclopedia stories, dramas, and magazine articles. Popular manuals and articles are commonly written by those who know little or nothing of the primary sources; they are consequently at least third hand, even when based upon the best secondary accounts. As a matter of fact, they usually patch together from older manuals and articles and may be four, five, or six times removed from the original source of knowledge.

It is well known that the more often a report passes from mouth to mouth the less trustworthy and accurate it becomes. Unimportant details that appeal to the imagination will be magnified, while fundamental considerations are easily forgotten, if they happen be prosaic and commonplace. Historians, like other people, are sometimes fond of good stories and may be led astray by some false rumor which, once started into circulation, gets farther and farther from the truth with each repetition.

For example, a distinguished historian of the Church, Cardinal Baronius, writing about 1600, made the statement, upon very insufficient evidence, that, as the year 1000 approached, the people of Europe generally believed that the world was about to come to an end. Robertson, a very popular Scotch historian of the eighteenth century, repeated the statement and went on to describe the terrible panic that seized sinful men as the awful year drew on. Succeeding writers, including some very distinguished ones, accepted and even elaborated Robertson's account. About thirty years ago, however, a French scholar pointed out that there was really no adequate basis for this strange tale. To the chroniclers of the time the year 1000 was clearly no more portentous than 997 or 1003. This story of the panic, which passed as historical fact for some three hundred years, offers an excellent illustration of the danger of relying upon secondary sources.

Questions to Ask About an Historical Work
One of the first questions then to ask upon taking up an historical work is, Where did the writer obtain the information? Has the writer simply copied his statements from the more easily accessible works in a familiar language, however unreliable and out of date they may be; or, dissatisfied with such uncertain sources, has the writer become familiar with the most recent researches of the distinguished scholars in the field, in whatever language they may have been written; or, still better, has the historian made a personal study of the original evidence that has come down to us of the events and conditions under discussion?

For example, a little book or essay on Charlemagne might be written after reading Hodgkin's Charles the Great, West's Alcuin, and one or two other easily accessible books on the subject. On the other hand, the writer might turn to the great French and German treatises of Charlemagne's reign and become acquainted with all articles which have appeared on the subject in historical journals or in the transactions of learned societies. Every conscientious historian would wish, however, to go still farther and directly see the evidence and draw personal conclusions. A good historian would turn to the sources themselves and carefully read the Annals of the Monastery of Lorsch, the life of Charlemagne by his secretary, Einhard, and the socalled Annals of Einhard. Such a research would also scrutinize all the numerous laws passed in Charlemagne's reign and consult all the writers of the time who refer to the emperor or to public events. In this way mastery would be gained of all that the past has handed down to us on this subject and all that is to be known about the matter. The most reliable historians, therefore, are ones who examines the sources for themselves, but who at the same time take advantage of the suggestions, criticisms, and explanations which have been made by other scholars who have also studied the original documents.

The Necessity of Using Primary Sources
No improvement in the methods of historical instruction in our high schools and colleges bids fair to produce better results than the plan of bringing the student into contact with the firsthand accounts of events, or, as they are technically termed, the primary sources.

This term may perhaps call up in the minds of some the vision of a solitary stoopshouldered, spectacled enthusiast, engaged in painfully deciphering obscure Latin abbreviations on yellow parchment. But it is a mistake to conclude that the primary sources are always difficult to get at, dull, and hard to read. On the contrary, they are sometimes ready to hand, and are often more vivid and entertaining than even the most striking descriptions by the pen of gifted writers like Gibbon or Macaulay.

The best secondary authorities stand to the sources somewhat as the description of a work of art or of a masterpiece of literature stands to the original. Just as we cannot afford to ignore the picture itself, or the great poem or drama, and confine ourselves to some one else's account of it, so in our historical work we ought to grasp every opportunity of examining for ourselves the foundations upon which history rests.

It may, of course, be urged that the trained historians, after acquainting themselves with the people and the circumstances of a particular period, can make better use of the sources than any relatively unskilled student. But, admitting the force of this argument, there is, nevertheless, so much to be learned from a study of the original accounts that cannot be reproduced by the most skilled hand, that no earnest student or reader should be content with secondhand descriptions when primary sources are available.

The sources are unconsciously molded by the spirit of the time in which they were written. Every line gives some hint of the period in which the author lived and makes an impression upon us which volumes of secondhand accounts can never produce. The mere information, too, comes to us in a form which we do not easily forget. The facts sink into our memory. One who actually talked with Attila, or who witnessed the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders, is clearly more likely to excite our interest than a writer of our own day, however much the modern writer may know of the king of the Huns or of the first crusade. It makes no great impression upon us to be told that the scholars of Dante's time had begun to be interested once more in the ancient learning of the Greeks and Romans; but no one can forget Dante's own poetic account of his kindly reception in the lower regions by the august representatives of pagan literature, Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, people "with eyes slow and grave, of great authority in their looks," who "spake seldom and with soft voices." . . .

The Modern Availability of Primary Sources
Even as late as the early 19^th century the path to the sources of European history was still a thorny one. The manuscripts of historical importance were often scattered about in innumerable small collections, chiefly in monasteries. The documents were stacked up in dark rooms, damp cellars, and dusty garrets. They were often carelessly transcribed, full of blunders, and illegible except to those specially versed in the art of deciphering ancient handwriting. There were usually no catalogues and nothing to guide the investigator to the material needed. The scholar was forced to travel from place to place and turn over masses of worthless or irrelevant material in the uncertain quest for the little which might be useful.

But all this is changed. Scholars may now sit at a convenient desk in a comfortable, welllighted library; they have clearly printed books before them, the texts of which have been established by a comparison of all the known manuscripts of the work in question. These have been collated by an expert; errors have been eliminated, and difficult passages annotated. The work has been carefully analyzed and supplied with an index, so that one may discover in a few moments just those paragraphs that have to do with the subject at hand.

The task of rendering the sources available has been a long and painful one, and has been going on for three or four hundred years. As early as the sixteenth century scholars began to bring together the medieval chronicles and print them in convenient collections. In the time of King Louis XIV of France a group of Benedictine monks in France won new distinction for their ancient order by publishing several admirable series and by preparing treatises to facilitate historical research.

The nineteenth century witnessed a development of the critical scientific spirit which has made it necessary to reprint many sources that had appeared previously in a defective form. Moreover, thousands of volumes of precious material hitherto available only in manuscript have been added to our resources. . . .

QUESTIONS

What is the difference between a Primary Source and a Secondary Source?
Give an example of a primary source.
Give and example of a secondary source.
What are some potential problems in using information from newspaper articles and textbooks?
What questions should you ask about a modern writer of history in order to determine his or her reliability?
Suggest ways in which you might find out if the modern English-language writer has looked at primary and secondary sources in a language other than English.
Give examples of types of primary sources that might be available for modern American history since 1945.

This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.

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