方法对比

	Source Criticism	Diplomatics
领域	Historiography	Historiography
方法族	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
起源年份	1889	1681
提出者	Leopold von Ranke; Bernheim and Langlois-Seignobos codification	Jean Mabillon (De re diplomatica)
类型	qualitative critical method	qualitative formal-analytic method
开创性文献	Howell, M., & Prevenier, W. (2001). From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods. Cornell University Press. ISBN: 9780801485602	Guyotjeannin, O., Pycke, J., & Tock, B.-M. (1993). Diplomatique medievale (L'Atelier du medieviste, 2). Brepols. ISBN: 9782503503127
别名	Quellenkritik, Historical Criticism, External and Internal Criticism, Heuristic and Critical Method	Diplomatic, Diplomatique, Urkundenlehre, Charter Criticism
相关	4	4
摘要	Source criticism (Quellenkritik) is the foundational procedure of the historical discipline, by which a scholar interrogates a source before treating any of its statements as evidence. Codified in the nineteenth century by Ernst Bernheim and by Charles-Victor Langlois and Charles Seignobos, and rooted in Ranke's insistence on examining documents at first hand, the method divides into two complementary operations. External (or lower) criticism establishes whether a source is what it purports to be: its authenticity, the integrity of its text, its author, place, and date. Internal (or higher) criticism then asks what the source means and how far its assertions can be trusted, weighing the author's competence, sincerity, proximity to events, and interests. Only after both passes does the historian compare independent sources and synthesize a defensible account. The discipline of the method lies precisely in its refusal to take any testimony at face value.	Diplomatics is the science that studies the form, structure, and genesis of documents, above all the solemn legal instruments of the Middle Ages such as charters, diplomas, and acts. Founded as a discipline by the Benedictine scholar Jean Mabillon, whose De re diplomatica (1681) answered Jesuit doubts about the authenticity of Merovingian charters, it provides a rigorous procedure for deciding whether a document is genuine and for dating and localizing it. The method rests on the observation that documents produced by a given chancery follow highly regular conventions: a fixed sequence of parts, recurring verbal formulae, standard modes of validation by seal and subscription. By dissecting a document into its constituent elements and comparing each against attested norms, the diplomatist detects forgeries, interpolations, and anachronisms, and pins a document to a place and time. Diplomatics is thus the most formalized branch of external source criticism.