Bishops and convents, as well as churches in the towns and parishes, owned a great deal of land. Peasants who rented this land were Bishop tenants, convent tenants, or Church tenants. They rented their farm from the Bishop, the convent or the Church and paid a yearly fee.
A lot of people gave large donations to the Church. Some even donated a whole farm. Noblemen sometimes left farms and other gifts to churches and convents in their wills. This was considered to be a good deed. The money was used to pay the priests, who said Mass for the dead nobleman on the anniversary of his death.
The monasteries and nunneries needed farms in order to pay for their buildings, food and employees. It was quite common for a father to donate some money or a farm to the nunnery if his daughter became a nun. Many monasteries and nunneries owned a lot of land and were very wealthy. Vadstena monastery and nunnery was one of the single biggest land-owners in Sweden during the 15th century. At the same time in Norway, different institutions within the Church owned almost half of the land in the country.
The Church and the convents had managers who inspected the farms, and collected the fees from the tenants. The fees were paid in money or goods. At the same time, the manager made sure that the peasants took good care of the farms.