Leipzig Debate
The Leipzig Disputation opens with Eck and Karlstadt
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗On opening day the famous confrontation was not Luther versus Eck at all — it was Karlstadt versus Eck, over whether the human will could cooperate with grace.
27 June 1519, in a duke's castle
The Leipzig Disputation formally opened on 27 June 1519 in the court hall of Leipzig's Pleißenburg — a ducal castle rather than a University of Leipzig lecture hall.
It proceeded under the protection of George, Duke of Saxony, despite opposition from the theological faculty and a prohibition by the bishop of Merseburg.
Mass, a procession, and an oration about manners
The opening included a Mass of the Holy Spirit at St Thomas Church and a procession to the Pleißenburg.
The Leipzig humanist Petrus Mosellanus then delivered a formal Latin oration urging fair and restrained debate.
Luther was in the room but not in the chair
The first disputants were Johann Eck and Andreas Karlstadt, who began arguing over free will, divine grace and good works. Martin Luther was present but did not begin his own disputation with Eck until 4 July.
Nothing about this was spontaneous. Eck's criticism of Luther, Karlstadt's published defence — 406 theses — and the resulting challenges among the three men had produced an agreement for a public academic disputation, which Duke George agreed to host.
Archival and critical-edition sources give the disputation's documented span as 27 June to 15 July 1519.
Sources
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What the sources leave uncertain
- Archival and critical-edition sources give June 27–July 15. Some later summaries give July 16, apparently counting an additional closing or departure day; this does not affect the securely documented opening date.