This is a facsimile of the Great Domesday, the completed survey reports on the wealth of all but three counties (Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, whose reports in unrefined form comprise the Lesser Domesday). England was divided into circuits of several counties, and each circuit had a team of royal legates who examined and listed the wealth of the region. The comprehensiveness of the survey was popularly said to match the thoroughness with which God would examine the world on Doomsday, hence its unofficial name. The survey was designed to institutionalize William's establishment of feudal tenure after his death (which happened a year after he commissioned the work in 1086). This full-color facsimile is made by continuous- tone offset lithography from the unbound original. The translation is taken from the Victoria History of the Counties of England. The facsimile folios are arranged in fifty-three separate gatherings in the manner of the original manuscript.