Abstract

The office of Master of the Revels first appears in late fifteenth-century England. The appointment during the Elizabethan era was one which entailed the supervision of court entertainment of a theatrical nature. By the Jacobean period the Master was a censor of plays who exacted fees for pieces licensed for public performance. During the tenure of the most famous English Master of Revels, Sir Henry Herbert, the office declined in importance with the granting of patents to Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant in 1660. By 1737 with the Licensing Act, the function of the Master of the Revels had become the province of the Lord Chamberlain.

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