The Reduction of Gustav I of Sweden, was an important reform during the Protestant Swedish Reformation, in which king Gustav I of Sweden ordered a reduction in church property and the return of land to the crown, making the national church dependent upon the monarch and effectively ending Swedish monastic life.
However, the king also wished to strengthen the position of the Swedish nobility, and therefore also allowed for all private donations of lands and estates to churches, bishops and convents since the reign of Charles VIII of Sweden to be retracted by the benefactors, or the families and descendants of the benefactors.
In the Reduction, all goods, lands and assets, particularly the formerly clerical castles, estates and strongholds belonging to Bishops and cathedrals, were to be regarded as Crown property, and the Bishops were from henceforth be provided for by the crown rather than from their own goods, in effect making the church economically dependent on the monarch.
The rule that allowed for the families of former benefactors to retract land and property donated to the church was particularly damaging to the convents.
From 1539, the final stage was introduced, in which the property of local vicars was also declared crown property, and valuables were confiscated from local churches and shrines - a visible sign of the reformation which caused opposition among the peasantry and contributed to the Dalecarlian rebellions and the Dacke War.