MASTABA, in Egyptian architecture, a rectangular cut stone tomb, with raking sides and a flat roof, usually containing three chambers. In the first the walls were sometimes richly decorated with paintings and had a low bench of stone on which incense was burnt. The second, containing the serdab, or image of the de ceased, was either closed, with holes pierced in the wall separat ing it from the first chamber, or entered through a narrow pass age through which the fumes of the incense passed. A vertical well-hole descended to the third in which the mummy was laid. MASTER, one holding a position of authority, disposition or control over persons or things. As a title of the holder of an office, the use of the Lat. magister is very ancient. Magister equitum, master of the horse, goes back to the early history of the Roman Republic (see DICTATOR). The British office is termed MASTER OF THE HORSE. In mediaeval times the title was of great frequency. In the British royal household most of the offices bearing this title are now obsolete. Of the greater offices, that of master of the buckhounds was abolished by the Civil List Act 1901. The master of the household, master of the ceremonies, master of the king's music still survive. Since 1870 the office of master of the mint has been held by the chancellor of the ex chequer. A deputy performs administrative and other duties.
At sea, a "master" is more properly styled "master mariner." In the merchant service he is the commander of a ship, and is by courtesy known as the captain. In the British navy he was the officer entrusted with the navigation under the captain. He had no royal commission, but a warrant from the Navy Board. Very often he had been a merchant captain. His duties are now performed by the staff commander or navigating lieutenant. The master-at-arms is the head of the internal police of a ship; the same title is born by a senior gymnastic instructor in the army. In the United States navy, the master is a commissioned officer below the rank of lieutenant.
"Master" appears as the title of many legal functionaries (for the masters of the supreme court see CHANCERY ; and KING'S BENCH, COURT OF ; for masters in lunacy see INSANITY : Law; see also MASTER OF THE ROLLS, p. 43)• The "master of the faculties" is the chief officer of the archbishop of Canterbury in his court of faculties. His duties are concerned with the appointment of notaries and the granting of special licences of marriage. The duties are performed ex officio by the judge of the provincial courts of Canterbury and York, who is also dean of Arches, in accordance with s. 7 of the Public Worship Regulation Act
1874. The "master of the Temple" is the title of the priest-in charge of the Temple church in London. It was formerly the title of the grand master of the Knights Templars. The priest in-charge of the Templars' church was properly styled the custos, and this was preserved by the Knights Hospitallers when they were granted the property of the Templars at the dissolution of that order. The Act of 1540 (32 Henry VIII.), which dissolved the order of the Hospitallers, wrongly styled the custos master of the Temple, and the mistake has been continued. The proper title of a bencher of the Inns of Court is "master of the Bench" (see INNS OF COURT). The title of "Master-General of the Ord nance" was revived in 1904 for the head of the Ordnance De partment in the British military administration.
"Master" is the ordinary word for a teacher, very generally used in the compound "schoolmaster." The word also is used in a sense transferred from this to express the relation between the founder of a school of religion, philosophy, science, art, etc., and his disciples. It is partly in this sense and partly in that of one whose work serves as a model or type of superlative excellence that such terms as "old masters" are used. In mediaeval uni versities magister was particularly applied to one who had been granted a degree carrying with it the licentia docendi, the licence to teach. In English usage this survives in the faculty of arts. The degree is that of artium magister, master of arts, abbreviated M.A. In the other faculties the corresponding degree is doctor. Some British universities give a master's degree in surgery, magister chirurgiae, C.M. or M.Ch., and also in science, magister scientiae, M.Sc.