ABSTRACT
In his 1609 treatise that defined, explained, and defended Catholic ceremonies, Münster’s Matthaeus Tympe (1566-1616)1 likened the preReformation Catholic community to wine. This community had been safe within the cask of the institutions and doctrines of the Church. What had guaranteed its safety, were the iron bands that encircled the cask and tightly compressed the seams of its many wooden slats. Those iron bands were Catholic rituals, and by damaging or destroying them (a reference to Lutherans and Calvinists, respectively), the heretics had ruptured the seams of the cask that was the Church. Poured out on the ground, the wine had been diluted, dissipated, and contaminated-just like the Catholic community.2
