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

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. If an unknown man was found slain, he was presumed to be a Norman

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

, and the hundred

Hundred (division)

A hundred is a geographic division formerly used in England, Wales, Denmark, South Australia, some parts of the United States, Germany , Sweden, Finland and Norway, which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller administrative divisions...

 was fined accordingly, unless it could be proved that he was English. Englishry, if established, excused the hundred.

It is thought that Danish invaders first introduced the practice in England, and that the Norman conquerors preserved and revived it. Dr. W. Stubbs

William Stubbs

William Stubbs was an English historian and Bishop of Oxford.The son of William Morley Stubbs, a solicitor, he was born at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1848, obtaining a first-class in classics and a third in...

 (Constitutional History, I 196) suggests such measures may have been taken by King Canute. But there is no direct evidence for this of an earlier date than the 13th-cent. legal treatise Bracton.

Englishry was abolished in 1340

Engleschrie Act 1340

The Engleschrie Act 1340 was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of England. The Act abolished the law of Englishry, whereby when a dead body was found, unless it could be proven to be an English person, it was assumed to be a Norman and therefore the hundred was fined...

.

See Select Cases from the Coroners Rolls, 1265-1413, ed. C. Gross, Selden Society (London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, 1896).