During this period, the title of boyar was granted by the Grand Prince (or, beginning with Ivan IV [r. 1533–84], by the Tsar). The boyars were generally representatives of the highest level of Muscovite aristocratic society – a closed caste whose members held military and administrative posts in the Tsardom.

The various boyar clans in Muscovy constantly competed with one another for influence, power, and riches, their ultimate prize being to secure the throne for their group. When Tsar Vasilii III died in 1533, his son and heir was only three years old. Ivan IV’s mother stepped in as regent and kept the boyar alliances in balance. However, she was poisoned five years later (presumably by rival clans), and the boyar groups engaged in bitter struggles to try to ensure their influence at court and to win the throne. Power changed hands three times, with each exchange accompanied by poisonings, imprisonments, executions, and exiles; even the Metropolitans, the heads of the Russian Orthodox Church, were appointed and deposed at whim. The boyar factions treated the boy Ivan with disdain: they denied him regular food and clothing; they stole his family’s treasures; they denied him friends and relatives; murders were carried out in his presence. Eventually, Ivan came of age and began to rule, and he never forgot his treatment at the hands of the boyars. In the second part of his reign, he made an effort to break their power and replace them with service gentry, who were dependent on and completely loyal to the tsar.