Until the Reformation, the Church dominated society, physically as well as mentally. Churches were the most important buildings of the village and the church exerted influence over almost every aspect of life, from baptism to death, with rituals for the expulsion of evil spirits, to drive away thunder and to bless many aspects of life and work.

Medieval beliefs were reflected in the architecture and decoration of churches. Weathervanes often feature a cock, because crowing frightened demons.

Rows of birds' beaks were carved on the west doorway of the Norman church at Iffley to protect the entrance and ward off demons which were believed to attack from the west.

To further deter them, figures of demons were carved in chains. Another beak-headed doorway can be found at Barford St Michael.

The small north door of the church was opened during baptism to let the devil leave the church after being driven out of the baby.

Seeing the image of St Christopher was believed to offer a day's preservation from illness and death, so many churches featured prominent wall-paintings of St Christopher, usually, as at Bloxham, accompanied by a hermit and a mermaid, facing the principal doorway.

The green man is a controversial character, generally thought of as a Pagan fertility figure. Depicted with greenery erupting from his mouth, he is rare in Oxfordshire but there is a detailed foliate mask in Dorchester Abbey.

Church bells formed the framework for the day for ordinary people who had no clocks or watches. On Sunday, the ten o'clock bell was taken as the signal to take lunch to be cooked at the bakehouse and the 12.45 bell was the time to collect it.

King Alfred ordered the curfew bell to be rung at 8pm, as a sign that it was time to cover the fire and go to bed.

At Charlton-on-Otmoor, Thomas Trite was rescued from getting lost in the fen by the sound of the church bell and left money for it to be rung every evening at 8pm to help others.

This was done until the outbreak of war in 1939. Bells were rung to celebrate the end of the old year and beginning of the new, to celebrate weddings and mark funerals, on special days such as Oak Apple Day and November 5, to summon women to glean in the fields after harvest, and on Shrove Tuesday.

At Black Bourton it was said the potato bell' was rung before the service to remind women to start cooking their potatoes!

Some villages have rhymes associated with their bells. The Headington bell asks Which Bells ring best?' to which Headington Quarry bells respond We do. We do.' Headington says Who eats all the bread and cheese?' and Quarry replies We two, Quarry hogs.' The Blewbury bell had to be cast three times, hence the rhyme: Three times hung and three times cast.

Blewbury's tenor cast at last.' In the past rushes were often strewn on church floors to keep them clean, but the last place in Oxfordshire where this was done was Shenington, north of Banbury. They were strewn on Trinity Sunday and the two following Sundays, using rushes grown on a special piece of ground which had been left to the church for that purpose. In 1905, this ground became allotments.

In some parishes people were permitted to walk on the church leads, as at Bloxham where, in 1825, the Rev Harry Davies wrote: "It was the custom here formerly when the Church leads were under repair, for the boys and girls to go up thither and mark the shape and size of their shoes with the sharp point of a knife, inserting the initials of the name and the date of the year in the centre."

Shapes dating back to 1659 have been found at Nether Worton and leads were still being decorated in Lower Heyford in the early 20th century. Marking shoe shapes on the church leads was done to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, or mark repairs to the roof, or national celebrations, such as commemorating the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo, as done at Spelsbury, where women also danced on the church roof.

The churchyard was the site of entertainments until the Reformation, and entries can be found in churchwardens' accounts, such as those of Henley-on-Thames and Abingdon, of buying bells for the Morris men and providing costumes for Robin Hood plays.

A surviving medieval parish ritual is Beating the Bounds at Ascension. It was important to check the boundaries had not been encroached when there were few maps, as the church was entitled to a tithe (ten per cent) from each parishioner.

The bounds are still beaten in Oxford, with the vicar, choirboys and congregation walking through shops such as Marks & Spencer in Queen Street, which forms the boundary of three parishes, climb fences and so on because although the boundaries have not changed, the topography has.

Now, instead of beating the choirboys at each mark so that they would remember them, the boys use their peeled willow wands to beat the mark, which is chalked white, shouting Mark, mark, mark' as they do so.

In large parishes such as Bampton the beating was done over several days. A vital member of the procession was an unmarried woman who carried a paddle and cut crosses to mark the boundaries.

Bread and beer were consumed in the churchyard at the end of each day.

Many boundaries were perambulated in 1974, a year of boundary changes, but it is now seldom kept up. In some places, such as Drayton St Leonard, the ceremony was combined with one for blessing the crops.