Murder. After the Conquest, William I ruled that any unidentified murder victim was to be assumed to be Norman - for which the *hun-dred in which the crime occurred was to be fined - unless he was proved to be English. In the *Dialogus de Scaccario, Richard fitz-Nigel said that murdrum also meant the murder was hidden and intended to be kept so by the perpetrator. By fitz-Nigel's own time distinctions between Norman and Englishman were blurring. One of the rights granted in a charter from Henry I to the citizens of London was exemption from the murdrum fine. Nevertheless, in LHP the penalty for murdrum was fixed at 46 marks. The whole idea of a distinct difference between Englishman and Norman having become obsolete, murdrum was abolished by statute in 1340. [< OldEngl. mord = death, destruction, murder] -
Cf. Wergeld
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Christopher Coredon with Ann Williams.