This was the age of Henry VIII., of Catherine de Medici, of the Inquisition, and of the Massacre of St.Bartholomew.
In this century of transition, the sixteenth, the man who exerted over the spirit of the age more influence than any other was Maxim the Greek (1480-1556), a learned scholar, a monk of Mt.

Athos, educated chiefly in Italy.

He was invited to Russia by Grand Prince Vasily Ivanovitch, for the purpose of cataloguing a rich store of Greek manuscripts in the library of the Grand Prince.

To his influence is due one of the most noteworthy books of the sixteenth century, the "Stoglava," or "Hundred Chapters," a set of regulations adopted by the young Tzar Ivan Vasilievitch (afterwards known as Ivan the Terrible), the son of Vasily, and by the most enlightened nobles of his time at a council held in 1551.

Their object was to reform the decadent morals of the clergy, and various ecclesiastical and social disorders, and in particular, the absolute illiteracy arising from the lack of schools.