Finally, there were a number of offices, called in Elizabethan parlance 'standing offices', each under a Master or other head of its own, which can only be regarded as on the borderline of the Household. These were the Great Wardrobe, the Revels, the Tents, the Toils, the Works, the Armoury, the Ordnance, and the Mint. They were financed separately from the Household, and had their various head-quarters in London away from the palace. But their officers were regarded as members of the Household, and although largely independent, they were in many or all cases subject to some kind of supervision by the Lord Chamberlain.[151] Probably the explanation of their origin is given by a phrase used about 1478 by the writer of the _Liber Niger_. Here the Wardrobe is spoken of as 'an office of chaumbre outward'.[152] In these standing offices, and also in the Secretariat, we seem to have examples of that budding off from the main administrative organization by which those great departments of state, the Exchequer and the Chancery, had already come into existence. Doubtless the process was facilitated, when considerations of practical convenience and a desire to reduce the number of mouths to be provided for in the palace led to the location of particular branches of work in permanent and independent premises. The history of the Revels Office, which will form the subject of another chapter, well serves to illustrate the kind of development involved.[153]