Question

How did Spain fund the religious wars it fought?

Answer 1

The first major religious military endeavor by Christian Spaniards was Reconquista, the expulsion of the Arab rulers of Southern Spain. Knights and soldiers who fought during Reconquista would not get directly paid by their kings: they would make profit from any loot they could take from the battlefield and their enemies.

Later on, the War of Reformation, the Thirty Years' Wars and other religious-related conflicts Spain took place in would be financed by the silver extracted from the mines located in Potosi in today's Peru. Since the amount of silver arriving in Europe was huge, it produced the first case f bad economic inflation in history.