Time and again Gustaf Vasa complained that crown income did not cover expenses. The problem was not unknown to his beloved brother in Denmark, or, for that matter, to other rulers of the period. “The central problem for the new royal power,” says Hammarström,

The fixed forms of revenue taken over from medieval administration were not up to the demands made on the regime. Civil administration was modest, carried out by the clergy, who could be accommodated with church office. The crown's great expenses were military, and they could not be controlled. They were unpredictable, they required ready cash, and they could not be put off.

The crown had a few options. The first was to break with the decentralized fief system and lay the great fiefs under the crown. As a consequence of the successful revolt against Christian II, the crown administered most of the central and southern provinces. Bailiffs answered directly to the king on matters of regulation, defense, passport control, ways and bridges, forests and hunting, inns, the post, and most important of all, revenue. But this did not solve the financial problem, the imbalance between income and expenses.

A second possibility was to augment income by recasting the terms of enfeoffment.