Those who provided the Stonors with ‘good lordship’ account for only some of the connections that this gentry family had. It remains to consider the other relationships that the Stonors had with a variety of people. There were those who, in their turn, viewed the Stonors as their lords, or who served them in some capacity. Then there were connections with other gentry, who themselves had their own web of connections. Historians have adopted the terms ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ relationships from sociology, and applied them to the late-medieval context. These terms have been used to distinguish between the experience of lordship in the affinity and the experience of community in the county. The term, ‘horizontal’, applies to relations between those of the same social status. The term, ‘vertical’, since it invariably applies to relationships between individuals of higher and lower status, can cover ties between gentry from different social and tenurial strata. The associations provided by these vertical and horizontal ties created the individual's social world, and hence influenced and affected his mentality.

Given the complexities of status in late-medieval society, however, social role did not necessarily align with status, so distinguishing between horizontal and vertical ties is not always straightforward. Some of the Stonors' own lords were from long-established families, and were themselves wealthy and eminent, while others were of similar status to the Stonors, or were even parvenus who had achieved recent worldly success.