The scholarship of early modern disputations has focused on printed theses, given their status as one of the most prevalent forms of printed material during that historical period. Despite the paucity of extant minutes transcribing discussions of these theses, this article posits that such manuscript sources merit consideration when researching this topic. This article explores the potential of handwritten documents, such as university records and notebooks of Hungarian students, to enhance our understanding of disputation practices in Central Europe during the period between 1580 and 1660. A comparison of printed disputations characteristic of Protestant Europe with manuscripts of Catholic and Jesuit provenance reveals a divergent function of scholarly debates. This latter group of disputations was less focused on the individual performance of the respondent and served more as a method of recapitulation in everyday education. In contrast, Protestant examples illustrate that disputations played a pivotal role in the dissemination of scientific knowledge and expertise. As professors and students transferred information from their respective homelands to university centres and vice versa, the medium of disputations underwent a transition from print to manuscript or vice versa.