Disputation
In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations (in Latin: disputationes, singular: disputatio) offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences.
[6] A significant category of disputations took place between Christian and Jewish theologians as a form of both theological and philosophical debate and proselytization.
... Official transcripts of these proceedings, moreover, may not duplicate what actually transpired; in some places what they record was not the live action, as it were, but Christian polemical revision composed after the fact.
"[7] Some disputations also appeared in the Islamic world, including one between a pen and a sword, attributed to Ahmad Ibn Burd al-Asghar in the 11th century.
In Leipzig, although the faculty of the university entered a protest, and the Bishops of Merseburg and Brandenburg launched prohibitions and an excommunication, the disputation took place under the ægis of Duke George of Saxony.
Eck forced his antagonist to make admissions which stultified the new Lutheran doctrine, whereupon Luther himself came forward to assail the dogma of Roman supremacy by divine right.
The Leipzig Disputation was the last occasion on which the ancient custom of swearing to advance no tenet contrary to Catholic doctrine was observed.
This was particularly the case in Switzerland, where Zwingli and his lieutenants organized a number of one-sided debates under the presidency of town councils already won over to Protestantism.
Emperor Charles V attempted to bring the religious troubles of Germany to a "speedy and peaceful termination" by conferences between the Catholic and the Protestant divines.
The Protestants proclaimed their determination to adhere to the terms of the Augsburg Confession, and, in addition, formally repudiated the authority of the Roman pontiff and "would admit no other judge of the controversy than Jesus Christ"; both Pope Paul III and Luther predicted failure.
However, since the emperor and his brother, King Ferdinand, persisted in making a trial, the pope authorized his nuncio, Giovanni Morone, to proceed to Speyer, whither the meeting had been summoned for June 1540.
A great deal of time was spent in wrangling over points of order; finally it was decided that Eck should be spokesman for the Catholics and Melanchthon for the Protestants.
Eck and Melanchthon battled four days over the topic of original sin and its consequences, and a formula was drafted to which both parties agreed, the Protestants with a reservation.
As collocutors at the religious conference which met simultaneously, Charles appointed Eck, Pflug, and Gropper for the Catholic side, and Melanchthon, Bucer, and Pistorius for the Protestants.
This compilation, it developed later, was the result of secret conferences, held during the meeting at Worms, between the Protestants, Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, on one side, and the Lutheranizing Gropper and a secretary of the emperor named Veltwick on the other.
After long and vehement debates, a formula was presented by Bucer and accepted by the majority, so worded as to be capable of bearing a Catholic and a Lutheran interpretation.
