Cooperatives like the religious knightly orders have always taken great care in collecting and preserving the documents and other writings that establish their rights and freedoms and demonstrate their possessions. Early on, they had well-organized and strictly protected archives for this purpose and repeatedly sought to have the letters of privilege granted to them by ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries confirmed whenever the opportunity arose, to ensure their recognition. Even later, those among their members who were literate did not tire of compiling the entire collection of documents, or at least the particularly important pieces, into thick folios. The Order of Hospitallers, or as it was later commonly called, the Johannites, made no exception in this regard.