two hundred students, most of them armed. Eck’s entourage was smaller, but Leipzig University provided him with an honor guard of officials and students. The famous choir of St. Thomas performed a mass that had been composed for the occasion. The debate itself, at Duke George’s castle, gave Luther an opportunity to tackle the indulgences in the context of the relationship between sin and grace. But Eck made it clear that the real issue was papal authority. In a series of theses, published as blueprints