hdeacon, the cantor, the scholasticus, and some thirty or forty
prebends. This little army of Church officers required to be fed, and
fed well--and the people of Sweden had to pay the bill. It was but
natural, therefore, that, Sweden being heavily involved in debt, the
monarch should seek to stay this wasteful extravagance and divert a
portion of the Church incomes to the crown.

By the war of independence the way had been already paved for a war
against the Church. Christiern had declared himself the champion of the
pope; and the higher clergy, as vicegerents of the pope in Sweden, had
generally allied themselves with the foreign party. So that the
rebellion had been in large measure directed against the authorities of
the Church itself, and the victory of Gustavus was felt distinctly as a
victory over the powers of the Church. The Chapter of Upsala had
therefore deemed it policy to please Gustavus, and were talking of
electing his chancellor archbishop in place of Trolle, who had fled the
realm. For a like reason the Chapter of Vesteras had chosen a former
secretary of Sture to their vacant bishopric. The bishoprics of
Strengnaes and Skara, made vacant by the expulsion of the Danes, had also
been filled by persons favorable to the general policy of Gustavus. So
that when the new monarch assumed control, the dignitaries of the Church
seemed likely to listen to his demands.[78]

It is not for a moment to be supposed that Gustavus at this time
contemplated an opposition to the pope. Such an idea had been spread
abroad by Christiern with a view to win sympathy in Europe; but Gustavus
had written to all the potentates of Europe to deny the charge, and had
sent a messenger to the pope to raise a counter charge against
Christiern as the murderer of two Swedish bishops in the slaughter of
1520. The pope, already distrustful of his Danish ally, had listened
favorably to the message, and in the following summer, 1523, had sent a
legate to Sweden to inform him further on the subject.[79]

This papal legate, Johannes Magni, was the son of a pious burgher of
Linkoeping, and along with his two brothers had been educated from
childhood for the Church. At the age of eighteen so marvellous was his
precocity that he was made a canon both of Linkoeping and of Skara.
Later, as was the practice with scholars of that period, he continued
his studies at several of the leading universities in Europe. But in
spite of a sojourn of some seven