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Spain had a compulsory tax of 10% on all agriculture goods and agricultural assets (including animals) which the state collected for the Roman Catholic Church from every member of the Roman Catholic Church.

This amounted to a huge amount of money the Romans Catholic Church collected from the people via the State.

This is why they fought to keep their subject in the dark , this why they forced conversions as they could only collect it from Catholics. This is why they forced the country to become Catholic.

It was about power and money .

It’s hard for Americans to imagine this because the founders of this country were wise enough to make state sanctioned religion illegal.

In Europe if you belong to a church in many places to this day the states takes a percentage out of your pay check and gives it to that church.

INTERESTING how bureaucratic political structures virtually always TRASH SCRIPTURE. So much for GOD ORDAINED, GOD ORDERED, SCRIPTURAL INJUNCTIONS TO joyful giving without coercion!

for you to read:
1. This tithing was followed by Protestant as well as Catholic governments across Europe

2. This still IS followed by Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, etc. i.e. mainly those who still follow it now are Protestant in name countries,

3. The diezmo was introduced in Aragon and Catalonia when they were frontier states (Marches) on the frontier between the CArolingian Empire and the Moors.

4. This was used to construct Churches and feed clergy (pretty important for the Reconquista)

5. In practice, the diezmo did not always retain its original purpose of subsidizing the Church. Feudal lords who were patrons of a monastery or church would gain the benefit of the tithe, or they might outright by the right to the tithe from the Church, becoming, effectively, tax farmers.

6. the diezmo was not always exactly ten percent. The actual amount differed in different places and times. Nor was it extended to all products of agriculture and husbandry, which led to market distortions as farmers shifted to whatever was not taxed.

7. In the Middle Ages, monarchs managed to participate in the benefit of the diezmo. Ferdinand III of Castile proposed to Pope Innocent IV the possibility that the royal treasury would receive the third of the diezmo destined for the construction of churches, in order to pay the costs of the siege of Seville. A share of two ninths was granted in 1247 Seville was captured in 1248.Once this first participation was agreed to, the royal share came and went for some years. Beginning in 1340, a portion of the diezmo was repeatedly assigned to the State, under the designation of tercias reales ("royal thirds"). This became permanent in 1494