[1][2][3] The Master of Faculties has retained his or her historical responsibility with respect to public notaries in England and Wales.
As notaries in England and Wales may also carry out certain non-contentious legal work,[7] he or she may thereby be a relevant approved regulator for certain dealings in land registration and real property, and for probate and the administration of oaths.
)[7] The Master of Faculties also has responsibility for the issue of special licences for marriage in England and Wales, and for Lambeth degrees.
[citation needed] Following the English Reformation, the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533, s.3 gave the Archbishop, or "hys commissarie", power to issue "suche licences dispensacions composicions faculties delegacies rescriptes instrumentes or wrytynges have byn accustomed to be had, at the See of Rome".
This included the power to appoint notaries in the ecclesiastical courts and the office of commissarie developed into that of the Master of the Faculties.