In the middle ages (and in some places even until now) the parish was the centre of community life. There would be dances and celebrations in the church, as well as meetings of almost every kind. Some people stored valuables there, feeling that no one would dare rob such a sacred place. One Tradition I found out recently though was the brewing of beer for different feasts and rogation celebrations.
The Tradition sounds strange in the wake of Puritans and Methodists who have been almost entirely successful in disassociating alcohol and God in the popular English mindset. Nonetheless, there was a series of brews for almost any occasion. The word “bridal” actually comes from “bride-ale” brewed for weddings. In some places the practice of beating the boundaries of the parish after consuming a small feast with church-ale or parish-ale was done even into the 19th century. This consisted of travelling all around the community together in athletic celebration, asking for God’s blessing on the crops and the people. It was revived largely in the Church of England during the Oxford Movement.
Parish-ales were brewed to honour the church’s patron saint, and later, sales were used to pay for building repairs which led to one humorous lyric:
For when they be drooping and ready to fall,
By a Whitsun or Church-ale up again they shall go
And owe their repairing to a pot of good ale”
—”Exaltation of Ale”, by Francis Beaumont