ABSTRACT
The risk is that well-intentioned attempts to foster public relations may somehow distort Hospitaller historiography. Hospitaller history can undoubtedly be publicized in ways that are both accurate and attractive, despite the possibility of over-simplifications or even of errors on the part of those who present it. One striking form of propaganda has been a series of exhibitions of Hospitaller paintings, frescoes, armour, tombs, coins, and suchlike. Many scholars are content to study Hospitaller history without working on its central records. A considerable public is eager for information about the Hospitallers, and some kind of general agreement to promote Hospitaller history in a coherent collaborative way or to create a coordinating international or inter-order body is clearly desirable, even if the obstacles appear formidable. Ludicrous mythologies have perverted the history of the Templars, and the heritage of other military-religious orders has been distorted in many, sometimes gruesome, ways.
