This collection of essays, put together in honour of Michael Hicks, well reflects his geographical compass, since the contributions range from Yorkshire in the north to Southampton in the south, and from Wales in the west to Suffolk in the east. These essays also reflect Michael's focus on the fifteenth century and on the nobility: here we have Edward IV (who was but a nobleman with a crown), together with scions of the families of Berkeley, Neville and Stafford to represent their peers. Missing from this collection is any essay focussing on Richard III, who must surely have absorbed much of Michael's attention. But what is not reflected here, and indeed could not be, is Michael's extraordinary output.

One way of assessing Michael's contribution to historical studies might be to consider his entry in the Bibliography of British and Irish History. Here Michael is recorded as having published seventy-five books or articles between 1977 and 2013 – that is more than two a year – and many of these items are substantial pieces of work, not mere scraps thrown to keep our Research Excellence Framework masters at bay. The Bibliography, however, goes beyond simply listing published works: it also provides an ‘author profile’ which is highly schematic but still of some interest. All the publications by a particular author are subjected to analysis in a variety of ways. A colourful pie chart demonstrates that 91% of Michael's publications related to English history, 4% related to Europe and the remaining 5% covered Britain, Wales, the Channel Islands and Scotland. Another pie chart categorises publications according to their ‘discipline’. Here 32% of Michael's work is classed as ‘political, administrative and legal’ history, 21% as ‘social history’; ‘religious history’ and ‘events’ (presumably specific battles etc.) secure 10% each, and 7% is assessed as ‘economic history’. The remaining 20% of Michael's output was divided between military, medical and intellectual history, sources and historiography. Yet another pie chart reveals that 50% of his output has appeared in a remarkably wide range of scholarly journals, chief among them the English Historical Review and Historical Research. These statistics and pie charts are, of course, very blunt instruments to use in assessing Michael's outstanding contribution to the study of medieval history in England in the last forty years.