Ever since K.B. McFarlane's work on the ties of lordship known as ‘bastard feudalism’, historians have concentrated on the potential for social cohesion they offered. This is in stark contrast to older interpretations which emphasised the disruptive nature of noble affinities. Bastard feudalism was the system in which lords retained men by grants of annuities and livery, enabling them to obtain the administrative, military and domestic service they required. For those retained, service was an avenue for social and economic advancement. The relationship also offered a potential benefit for medieval governments which might utilise these connections for the effective administration of the localities. As James Ross has noted, the emphasis of recent scholarship has been on ‘the durability and loyalty of magnate affinities, not their fickleness or instability’. The acceptability of certain forms of retaining should not, however, disguise the reality that retaining also had the potential to facilitate disorder. Retaining did not in itself lead to lawlessness and rebellion, but might be a method of recruitment employed by the nobility for such purposes. Regulation was required and came in the form of several statutes passed between 1390 and 1504 that attempted to restrict retaining by grants of livery, and from 1468 onwards by indentures of retainer, to members of a lord's family, his estate officials and immediate household. These Acts have been used by historians to illuminate the politics of the periods in which they were passed. The first Act, of 1390, has been examined in relation to problems regarding Richard II's retaining policy; a dispute between the Commons and Lords regarding the lawless activities of magnates and their retainers; and as a ‘byproduct of [the gentry’s] concern for their own social position’ through the restriction of those entitled to distribute liveries. Similarly, the retaining laws passed during Henry VII's reign, and in particular the Act of 1504, which introduced licenses to retain, have been viewed as central to understanding that monarch's policy towards the nobility.

Michael Hicks's primary contribution to our understanding of livery laws is his article on the statute of 1468, which demonstrated that this formed part of Edward IV's professed commitment to law and order made in parliament on 17 May that year, and was provoked by a series of prosecutions for illegal livery linked to recent disturbances in Derbyshire.