Michael Hicks (historian)
| Michael Hicks | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 December 1948 |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | Medieval English History, the Yorkist Kings, the Wars of the Roses, Richard III, bastard feudalism |
| Institutions | King Alfred's College, Winchester; University of Winchester |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Doctoral advisor | C.A.J. Armstrong, Hertford College, Oxford |
| Known for | Professor of English History, Author, Lecturer |
Michael Hicks (born 1948) is an English historian, specialising on the history of late medieval England, in particular the Wars of the Roses, the nature of late medieval society, and the kings and nobility of the period.
Hicks studied under Charles Ross while a final-year undergraduate student at the University of Bristol (1969–70),T.B. Pugh for his M.A. at Southampton (1971), and C.A.J. Armstrong for his DPhil. at the University of Oxford (1975), which he had originally began under J.R.L. Highfield. In his own words, his research was- and remained- firmly placed within 'the school of history founded by the late K.B. McFarlane... the Master" although with a heavy "biographical bent." His first published article, however, was on an aspect of law in the seventeenth century. Having worked for the Victoria County History project between 1974–78, he joined King Alfred's College, Winchester, later the University of Winchester. A proposed joint paper with his former tutor, Charles Ross, on bastard feudalism had come to nothing by 1978, and a suggestion by Gerald Harriss for a joint study with Christine Carpenter, Michael Hicks and himself 'foundered on [their] incompatible points of view.'
Originally firmly wedded to the McFarlane understanding of bastard feudalism, in which the nobility were motivated almost solely by financial and material interests, in which 'self-interest, self-advantage, and self-preservarion featured largely,' this perspective gradually evolved, by the last decade of the twentieth century, into a more 'complex' understanding of the English nobility, in which their piety and religious belief, idealism and individuality are as important motives in 'high politics' as material benefit. In a 2014 interview with Royal Studies Journal, he opined that, until recently, 'all History was political;' but noted that there was an increasingly thematic trend to historical research.
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