Englishry
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Englishry, or Englescherie, is a legal name given, in the reign of William the Conqueror, to the presentment of the fact that a person slain was an Englishman. If an unknown man was found slain, he was presumed to be a Norman, and the hundred was fined accordingly, unless it could be proved that he was English. Englishry, if established, excused the hundred. Dr. W. Stubbs (Constitutional History, I 196) says that possibly similar measures were taken by King Canute. Englishry was abolished in 1340.
See Select Cases from the Coroners Rolls, 1265-1413, ad. C. Gross, Selden Society (London, 1896).
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- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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