their king from each district by selecting 12 people from the local nobles, who then elected the king at the Stones of Mora. The divide ended when a third clan married into the Erik clan and founded the Bjelbo dynasty. This dynasty gradually consolidated a pre-Kalmar-Union Sweden to a strong state. Sweden was likely not unified until the middle of the 13th century. In 1332 the king of Denmark, Christopher II, died as a "king without a country" after he and his older brother and predecessor had divided Denmark into smaller polities. King Magnus took advantage of his neighbours' weakness, purchasing lands for the eastern Danish provinces for 6500 kg of silver, which included Scania. On 21 July 1336, Magnus was crowned king of Norway and Sweden in Stockholm. Scania was later reconquered by the Danish king Valdemar in 1360. During the early Middle Ages, the Swedish kingdom also expanded to control Norrland and Finland. This expansion sparked tension with the Russian states, a tension that was to continue throughout Swedish history. After the Black Death and internal power struggles in Sweden, Queen Margaret I of Denmark united the Nordic countries in the Union of Kalmar in 1397, with the approval of the Swedish nobility. Modern Sweden: 1523–1611 In the 16th century, Gustav Vasa (1490–1560) fought for an independent Sweden, crushing an attempt to restore the Union of Kalmar and laying the foundation for modern Sweden. At the same time, he broke with the papacy and established the Lutheran Church in Sweden. The Union's final disintegration in the early 16th century brought on a long-lived rivalry between Norway and Denmark on one side and Sweden on the other. The Catholic bishops had supported the Danish King Christian II, but he was overthrown by Gustavus Vasa, and Sweden became independent again. Gustavus used the Protestant Reformation to curb the power of the church and was crowned as King Gustavus I in 1523. In 1527, he persuaded the Riksdag of Västerås (comprising the nobles, clergy, burghers, and freehold peasants) to confiscate church lands, which comprised 21% of the farmland. Gustavus took the Lutheran reformers under his protection and appointed his men as bishops. Gustavus suppressed aristocratic opposition to his ecclesiastical policies and efforts at centralization. Tax reforms took place in 1538 and 1558, whereby multiple complex taxes on independent farmers were simplified and standardized throughout the district; tax assessments per farm were