There were the terms of office of Master of the Revels, for the central government of England:

It is believed that King Henry VIII was the first English monarch to officially designate a Master of the Revels. This type of official action by a king was termed "issuing a patent". The patent issued by Henry VIII was in 1545 for Sir Thomas Cawarden, as noted above. The only person on the above list who did not receive a patent was Sir Thomas Blagrave.

A Revels office in the central government was present, albeit in a less official sense, for many years before this. The approximate time of its beginning was the 1490s. The word "Revels" was used even earlier to refer to theatre performances for the king. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that the phrase "of the Kyng's revell of thes yere past" appeared in writing in 1478. This was during the reign of Edward IV, suggesting that the performances took place for at least four kings prior to Henry VIII. Most likely, however, the performances extended back even further into history, but with no written record surviving. Also, during the 15th century and possibly earlier, a Master of the Revels existed in some local governments in England (e.g., county, city, or town).

Originally, the primary role of the Master of the Revels was to organize theatre entertainment for the royal family. In fact, a motivation for Sir Thomas Cawarden's appointment is that the demand for work associated with theatre productions had become large enough to exceed the available resources. In general, royal entertainment was assigned to the position of Lord Chamberlain, one of the powerful roles within the monarchy. With increased popularity of theatre, it made sense to split off this work into a separate office.

In the early years, the bulk of the office's work was costume production. This was also responsible for much of the expense, because of lavish and elaborate costumes made from expensive fabrics. The office also worked on other production needs, such as constructing and painting sets, supplying props, and designing special effects. There were also significant management tasks for ensuring that each production came together.

Performing at court was the ultimate source of prestige for any company of actors, and the Office of the Revels always gave highest priority to court performance. The office was, however, in charge of all theatre, including plays that weren't currently scheduled for court, and the many lower-quality plays that would never be selected for court. The work of the office extended into two principal areas: censorship and licensing. In general, censorship meant that the author of a play needed to provide an advance copy to the Master of the Revels, who could modify it as he wished. Usually this meant striking out unacceptable passages. Licensing meant that a written signature of the Master of the Revels was needed on the official copy of the play, and the company of actors needed to have this copy available at all times to avoid legal trouble. Copies of the Master of the Revels patent were circulated throughout England, so that the signature could be verified. The Office of the Revels was also required to accept complaints from theatre-goers about offensive material in a play. It is unclear whether complaints ever resulted in reissuing a license after further material was removed from a play.

The scope of the licensing authority certainly extended to all companies of actors who ever performed at court. They had a direct interest in not losing their prospects for court performance as a result of any unlicensed activity. Unlicensed activity would also in some cases result in prison sentences. The licensing authority also had strong control over all theatre within the London area, because enforcement there was relatively simple. At least at some times during the existence of the Office of the Revels, amateur companies operating far from London could typically get away with unlicensed plays. Also, it is believed that university theatre (e.g., performances that were solely within the academic communities of Oxford and Cambridge) was, in practice, completely exempt from licensing.

In the early years, a court production was essentially an "in-house" work. In other words, everyone involved on or off stage was directly working for the central government. Soon, theatre became commercialized. Each company of actors worked on a for-profit basis, and would typically travel around England to bring their play to many audiences. Performing at court was always of great interest, but resulted in little income. A performance at court typically was quite similar to a performance elsewhere, and therefore the private company typically already had everything they needed to perform the play and didn't require much production assistance from the Office of the Revels. This meant that traditional competencies of the office (designing costumes, etc.) were much less relevant. The office needed to focus its work on censorship and licensing.

In the later years, the office tried to move beyond its role in the censorship and licensing of theatre performance, and also issue licenses for printed copies of plays. The office did not actually have any authority over printing, but still was able to obtain some new license revenue in this way. Going even further outside its charter, the office offered licenses for other events associated with theatre, such as establishing a company of actors or constructing a new theatre building. On the production side, the major responsibility that the office was able to retain was lighting. (Lighting occurred only for indoor theatres -- there was never any attempt to light the large theatres of London, which were in the open air and never had nighttime performances.) There was also some responsibility for ensuring that heat was available in the winter, and for providing security guards and sanitary facilities. In other words, the Office of the Revels ended up simply providing low-level services that would be needed for any public events, and no longer contributing to the content of a play's production.

The nature of censorship also changed over the years. At first, the primary concern was ensuring that a play was politically acceptable. For example, the play could not be directly critical of the government (or of the Church), it could not offer any challenge or disrespect to legitimate authority, and it also could not contain allusions to concepts or events that were politically sensitive. The Master of the Revels needed to make use of a careful understanding of the political climate in order to make judgments about deletions from a play. He also needed a strong literary background in order to interpret allusions. As time went on, this type of political review became much less prevalant. It is not clear why that occurred, although possibly the authors of plays became more aware of what topics to avoid, and thus the Master of the Revels simply was not receiving any unacceptable material. The aspect of censorship that continued to be of importance was locating and removing any blasphemy. This was a rather formulaic process and didn't particularly draw upon the Master's skills.

Theatre in England was essentially shut down during the Civil War (beginning in 1642) and throughout the Commonwealth period. Puritans were in control during the Commonwealth period and were strongly opposed to public entertainment, viewing it as a vice that corrupted society. When the monarchy was re-established in 1660, the Master of the Revels from 1642 continued in his office. In general, the same tasks continued, but with a continuing decline of acceptance of his authority. The Office of the Revels was abolished in the early 18th century.

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