The whole disputation was opposed and protested against from the outset by the Bishop of Merseburg, the chancellor of the university of Leipzig and the spiritual head of the faculty of theology. The project must have been inadmissible in his eyes from the mere fact that Eck's theses revived the controversy about indulgences, which was supposed to have been settled once and for ever by the Papal bull. He appealed to this pronouncement as a reason for not holding it. Inasmuch as the disputation took place, in spite of this protest, with the Duke's consent, it became an affair of all the more importance. Duke George himself took an active interest in the matter. His was a robust, upright, and sturdy character. He was a staunch and faithful upholder of the ecclesiastical traditions in which he had grown up; it was difficult for him to extend his views. But he was honestly interested in the truth. He wished that his own men of learning might have a good scuffle in the lists for the truth's sake. On hearing of the objections of the Leipzig theologians to the disputation, his remark was, 'They are evidently afraid to be disturbed in their idleness and guzzling, and think that whenever they hear a shot fired, it has hit them.' An unusually large audience being expected for the disputation, he had the large hall of his Castle of Pleissenburg cleared and furnished for the occasion. He commissioned two of his counsellors to preside, and was anxious himself to be present. How much depended on the impression which the disputation itself, and Luther with it, should produce upon him! On June 24 the Wittenbergers entered Leipzig, with Carlstadt at their head. An eye-witness has described the scene: 'They entered at the Grimma Gate, and their students, two hundred in number, ran beside the carriages with pikes and halberds, and thus accompanied their professors. Dr. Carlstadt drove first; after him, Dr. Martin and Philip (Melancthon) in a light basket carriage with solid wooden wheels (Rollwagen); none of the wagons were either curtained or covered. Just as they had passed the town-gate and had reached the churchyard of St. Paul, Dr. Carlstadt's carriage broke down, and the doctor fell out into the dirt; but Dr. Martin and his _fidus Achates_ Philip, drove on.' Meanwhile, an episcopal mandate, forbidding the disputation on pain of excommunication, had been nailed up on the church doors, but no heed was paid to it. The magistrate even imprisoned the man who posted the bill for having done so without his permission.