Souldern is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire about 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Bicester and a similar distance southeast of Banbury.

He married his daughter Eustache or Eustachia to Hugh FitzOsbern (died 1140), by whom the manor became part of the honour of Richard's Castle in Herefordshire.

Hugh and Eustache's sons took their mother's surname de Say, and overlordship of the Honour of Richard's Castle, including Souldern, remained with the family until about 1196, when their grandson Hugh de Say died leaving Richard's Castle to his daughter Margaret.

Joan married twice and with her second husband Richard Talbot had a son, John, who was recorded as overlord of Souldern in 1346.

The younger Richard seized the Crutched Friars' land at Souldern and granted it to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk in 1448.

[3] Souldern was inherited by his daughter Joan Arches and her husband Sir John Dynham.

In 1604 John Weedon acquired the fourth and final part of Souldern by quitclaim, thus reuniting the manor after just over a century of division.

John left his manor to Samuel Cox, the infant grandson of Richard Kilby of Souldern.

In the 1860s Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Snead Cox of Broxwood, Herefordshire was listed as lord of the manor of Souldern, but thereafter the lordship was allowed to lapse.

Mary was a friend of William Bernard Ullathorne, the Bishop of Birmingham, and she was generous in the local village.

[5] These developments helped to revive Souldern's Roman Catholic community which by the end of the 19th century comprised about nine families.

The mill was independent of Souldern Manor, and being on the county and parish boundary with Aynho it may have served both villages.

Early in the 17th century the lord of the manor wished to terminate all common land rights but the Souldern's freeholders opposed him and the case went to court.

The judge advised the parties to accept the arbitration of the Recorder of Banbury, Sir Thomas Chamberlayne, who ruled that the parish be "measured, divided and inclosed".

The parish was duly surveyed and in 1613 the division and awarding of land was ratified by the Court of Chancery.

[2] Before enclosure much of the parish was arable, but afterwards farmers converted the major part of their land to pasture and meadow, apparently to minimise the amount of tithes that they had to pay.

[2] Numerous houses in Souldern are built of local pale Jurassic limestone and date from the Great Rebuilding of England between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries, some with stone-mullioned windows on the lower floor and attic dormers upstairs.

[2] In 1641 during the English Civil War, Royalists ordered the parish to send carts and provisions to King Charles I at Oxford.

[2] Souldern's first purpose-built village school was paid for by William and James Minn and opened in 1816.

[2] The main road between Bicester and Banbury was made into a turnpike by an Act of Parliament passed in 1791.

[9] When Britain's principal roads were classified early in the 1920s, the stretch of the former turnpike between Bicester and Twyford, Oxfordshire was made part of the A41.

In 1990 the section of the M40 motorway between Wheatley, Oxfordshire and Hockley Heath was built and the Bicester - Twyford stretch of the A41 was reclassified as part of the B4100.

The M40 runs through the southwestern part of Souldern parish, passing within 1,200 yards (1 km) of the village.

The cut-off line leaves the Cherwell valley via the 1,155 yards (1,056 m) long[11] Ardley Tunnel, the north portal of which is in the parish.

[12] Souldern Football Club plays in the Banbury District and Lord Jersey FA.