 It was encouraged by king Ferdinand VI of Spain and his minister the Marquis of Ensenada, and is known today as the Catastro of Ensenada.The "general answers" of each place to the 40 questions of the Catastro produced a huge volume of documentation that affords historians an opportunity to analyze the economy, the society, the practices of the señorío system (manorialism) and environmental data from 18th-century Spain.It is the best statistical register of the pre-statistical age of the Ancien Régime in Europe.