Abstract: The subject of the monograph is located at the junction of the history of literature, historical poetics, book science and socio-historical psychology. Based on a study of about 200 literary texts of the 16^th–17^th centuries. The book gives a description of literally historians of the most important social attitudes of Russian medieval society, the clash of sentiments of its upper and lower classes, the place of writers in emerging ideological and psychological social situations during Russia’s transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern time. The book includes an index of old printed works.