Englishry

Englishry, or Englescherie, is a legal name given, in medieval England, for the status of a person as an Englishman, i.e. as a commoner of native Anglo-Saxon stock rather than a member of the Anglo-Norman elite. Specifically, presentment of Englishry refers to the establishment that a person slain was an Englishman rather than a Norman. If an unknown man was found slain, he was presumed to be a Norman, and the administrative district known as the hundred was fined accordingly, unless it could be proved that he was English. Englishry, if established, excused the hundred.