money was disbursed, seems difficult to comprehend. Some clew, however, may be gained when we consider what a vast horde of clergy the Swedish people had to feed. Take, for example, the cathedrals. Most of them formed a little hierarchy in themselves. First of all was the archbishop or the bishop, who lived in regal splendor. Around him was his chapter, comprising in one instance as many as thirty canons. Then there was the archdeacon, 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 Vesterås had chosen a former secretary of Sture to their vacant bishopric. The bishoprics of Strengnäs 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]