When assessing the following of a late medieval magnate, it is inevitable that the historian will concentrate on those who can be proved to be connected to the nobleman directly; in practice this usually means where a cash fee, either as a retainer or in return for administrative or legal service can be traced, or where other non-financial bonds, such as an enfeoffment, are identified. With the affinity often described in terms of a series of concentric circles, these followers are part of the inner rings of a magnate's following. This study is no different – perforce it must concentrate on those closest to the earl, those retainers, administrators and key household officials, whose positions, fees and close associations are provable through estate and household accounts, business transactions and Paston letter evidence. Obviously, those on the outer fringes of a magnate's circle, well-wishers and acquaintances, are far harder to trace. Yet, as Michael Hicks has stated, the thirteenth earl relied for ‘regional hegemony’ on ‘the vaguer goodwill and co-operation’ of the ‘most ancient families of the gentry whom [he] had not retained, as well as those [he] had’.