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3 ._NEW IDEA OF THE CHURCH. igi
simple men, for he is armed with the weapons of Scripture,
not with the writings of St. Birgitta or anyone else, but
with those of divine Scripture
"
(Cornelius: ibid.).
But, though the king thus showed his intention of pro
tecting the new teaching, he did not put forward any of its
tenets. Neither inclination nor policy led him to enter the
theological arena. He was not a learned man like Henry
VIII., nor, even if he had had the desire to pose as a
theologian, had he leisure for it. A great political and
financial burden rested upon him, especially in the absence
from Sweden of any class of trained statesmen, or even
officials capable of keeping accounts on a large scale. He
sent young men to be trained in Germany, as Upsala did
not furnish them, and he tried in succession various
ministers, to whom, in his impatience, irritability, sus-
piciousness and reluctance to give praise, he was a very hard
master.3
The most successful perhaps was the first Laurentius
Andrere, who remained with him for about nine years till
1532. When he retired he seems to have recommended
his friend, Olaus Petri, who was, however, too much of
an idealist for the practical needs of Gustaf, and too in
dependent, straightforward and impetuous to be personally
acceptable to him. After two years of unequal partnership
Gustaf dismissed him with the trying remark that he was
as fit to be chancellor as an ass to play the lute, or a
frisky cow to spin silk (Schiick :
Olavus, 56). He was suc
ceeded in the chancellorship by another learned man,
Christopher Andersson, one of the students sent to Ger
many, with whom the king quarrelled badly. Then came a
German jurist, Konrad von Pyhy, or Peutinger, in 1538,
who, in company with the Pomeranian nobleman, George
Norman, introduced many novelties of administration from
the Continent, including a good many borrowings from
Roman civil law. We shall have to speak later of the in
fluence of Norman in the Church. Von Pyhy was dis-
8
See Lektor (now Riksarkivarien) E. Hildebrand :
Gustaf
Vasa, etc., pp. 17-25.
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