ABSTRACT
Readers may speak metaphorically of heavy scholarship and dense prose. But students of the crusades, especially of the Order of the Hospital, may speak literally of weighty tomes. In order to advance Hospitaller studies to a new level, researchers must consider the appearance of charters and their method of transmission to answer questions of Hospitaller record keeping and notarial forms. The physical appearance of the artifacts in the Hospitaller archives can tell the researcher as much about the uncertainties of Latin settlement in the crusader states and the development of Hospitaller estates as the published transcriptions. The Hospitallers began preserving their manuscripts before the evacuation of Acre in 1291. The Hospitallers' long tenure on Malta ensured the continuity of its later records, but even after the Order established itself on the island its remaining archives suffered additional dispersals.
