In the 16th and 17th centuries the Odoyevsky family served at the Moscow court as boyars and voivodes. The house produced 13 boyars. The voivodes from the Odoyevsky family participated in many battles of the 16th century, and were especially notable in the battles with the Tatars and in the 1552 Kazanian Campaign of Ivan the Terrible. Prince Nikita Romanovich Odoevsky (d. 1573) entered the Oprichnina of 1565–1572. As a boyar and a member of the Oprichnina, he served as a leader in many battles. He was the voivode at the Battle of Molodi (1572), fighting against the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray. He headed the troops in the 1572 battle with the Cherimisy after their uprising in the . In 1573, soon after he was appointed the voivode on the Oka, he suddenly fell from grace, was captured and tortured to death. His grandson, Prince ( - 1689), served as namestnik ( - viceroy) in Astrakhan and in Vladimir, ran the "Prikaz" (ministry) of Siberia and the "Prikaz" of the Kazanian palace. He supervised the making of the Code of 1649 ("Sobornoye Ulozheniye"), was the head of the Grand Treasury and the Ministries of the Reiter () and Foreign Regiments. In 1682 he signed the decree annulling the mestnichestvo.