Much of the territory of the Duchy of Württemberg lies in the valley of the Neckar river, from Tübingen to Heilbronn, with its capital and largest city, Stuttgart, in the center.

[1] Württemberg was also one of the most populous regions of the Holy Roman Empire, supporting 300,000-400,000 inhabitants (and a birthrate that grew 6–7% each year) in the 16th century, 70% of which lived in the countryside.

Despite having earlier been the count from 1480 to 1482, he proved to be administratively incompetent, and his attempt to begin a war against Bavaria prompted the Estates to request Maximilian I to call a diet in March 1498 to remove Eberhard II.

[11] The tax, combined with the statute passed by the Estates in 1514 that denied scales and weights, further hurting merchants and farmers, the lack of say commoners had in their own government, and the restriction of the use of the forests, rivers and meadows around them caused much unrest.

[b] A list of grievances from the peasantry makes clear their dissatisfaction,[13] and the final result of this dissatisfaction and taxation was the Poor Conrad revolt, which began in Kernen im Remstal in the Schorndorf district, 30 km (19 mi) from Stuttgart, a wine-growing region particularly affected by economic downturn caused by poor harvests in recent years and high taxation.

[12] He held it in Tübingen on 26 June 1514 in a move that showed his paranoia of public opinion of him in the capital, and would be the first of three diets in Ulrich's reign, though representatives from 14 towns in the duchy had met previously in Marbach am Neckar in order to effectively pacify the attending commoners.

The Bavarians resorted to attacking the duchy, causing Maximilian I to intervene and call a diet in Stuttgart on 18 September 1515 to limit Ulrich's power and to create a balanced system of government.

This resulted in the Treaty of Blaubeuren, which mandated that a seven-member regency would rule the duchy for a period of six years consisting of the Landhofmeister, the Chancellor, a prelate, two nobles, and two burghers, with an eighth regent to be named by the emperor.

Ferdinand first called a diet to state publicly his support of the Treaty of Tübingen, then appointed a new Statthalter, Maximilian van Zevenbergen from the Netherlands, and new Chancellor, Heinrich Winckelhofer.

The supervision of the count's court income and grain and wine had become too great for the 15th century Hofmeister and cellarer, prompting the creation of the receipt department (Zentralkasse), staffed by the territorial clerk (Landschreiber) and ducal treasurer (Kammermeister).

The final office in local government was the town clerk (Stadtschreiber), who wrote up important documents for the council and would sometimes supervise the taxation of the populace.

[38] One of the leading burgher councilors in the central government was the Chancellor (Kanzler), a position again traceable to the 13th century, when monks worked on documents for the court.

At first, the Vice Chancellor held no political power, but then Duke Christoph enlarged the role of the Kammersekretär by allowing him to advise on policies concerning the chancery, church council, and even to oversee the treasury, a right no other official but the chamber master (Kammermeister) possessed.

Supervision of the monasteries and nunneries was important to the duchy, as the Reformation made their exorbitant spending no longer acceptable, though they were still allowed to exist in Lutheran Württemberg.

The government placed levies on the "fourteen great monastic trusts,"[f] and the Duke or the Estates could spend this money on the duchy's defense or on other projects.

[40] Of the positions only held by nobility, most were created in the 15th century and required little or no education, paid much more than burgher, and often involved constant contact to the Duke or other nobles.

[38] Beneath the councilors were the secretaries, clerks, and accountants who ran the bureaucracy of the duchy and adhered to a strict discipline and worked long hours.

The Estates became useful to the Duke for the payment of his debts and for the declaration of the war, and they provided the duchy's leading inhabitants political power and a forum to debate in.

[48] The regency of Duke Ulrich was a time of transition for the Estates, as they authored a government based on collegiate principle, with four nobles acting as regents and two prelates as advisers.

Frequent trading partners were the duchy's neighbors, mostly including the south western Imperial cities like Esslingen am Neckar and Reutlingen, and the Swiss Confederation.

Although the duchy was recognized by Peter H. Wilson as "one of the weaker middle ranking territories within the Empire," the Dukes went to great - and expensive - lengths by the ducal court to be ahead of the cultural curve.

These two men had a falling out and Störl attempted to have Schwartzkopf and his family ejected from the Kapellhaus, claiming that his residence was unsuitable for the practice of opera.

Emperor Charles VI released the entire musical ensemble of the Imperial fugitives by decree in May 1706, and Eberhard Louis hired Pez as Senior concert master (German: Oberkapellmeister) of the Württemberg Hofkapelle, above both Störl and Schwartzkopf.

"Despite its small size and financial strain, Pez was still very proud of the quality of his instrumentalists,[57] however he worried about his vocalists,[58] who were not numerous and contained many Catholic members who would at times not be present, exacerbating the problem.

[54][i] It is also likely that female vocalists formed part of a French comödianten from 1713 to 1716 in a nod to the large-scale theatrical performances of the early days that the Duke called off and never returned to because of the vast amounts of money lost in the stay of Johann Sigismund Kusser in Stuttgart, and Pez (according to his own word) was required to practice with and compose for this group for many hours.

[54] This group would perform in the celebrations of the Duke's hunting order, founded in 1702 and named after St. Hubert, that became one of the most important events in court life as the 18th century moved ahead, with Pez and the various components of the participating Hofkapelle lodged in and around Ludwigsburg Palace.

By 1715, this began to cause financial hardship in Stuttgart, as the ecclesiastical bodies whom fronted the salaries of the Hofkapelle made known their disdain for paying a clearly secular facet of the court.

To reduce this strain, a rotational system wherein a copyist and pianist were on call at all times with three groups consisting of a violinist, an oboist, and a string bass player alternating every four weeks.

[64] In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Pietism became widespread throughout the duchy as a response to the perceived hedonism of Baroque society and attempt at a French absolutist state.

After the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht that ended the War of the Spanish Succession, the duchy enjoyed a period of peace and increasing fortune, and Württemberg Pietism's character shifted from moral and philosophical criticism of society to quiet theological contemplation.