holding an extensive university education, and were employed in an ever-growing number for the administrative needs of the Duchy. Despite the lower pay and prestige they enjoyed by comparison to nobility, burghers would remain their own distinct class. The best example of the power wielded by the burghers in the Duchy's government, however, was to be found in the Estates, who sought always to hold the Duke to the terms of the Treaty of Tübingen, a piece of legislation that outlined the rights of the burghers and the Duke's duties to them. The foundations of the government of the Duchy of Württemberg were laid even before the elevation of the County of Württemberg in 1495. The House of Württemberg had governed the territory for centuries, but had split in half along the two branches of the family in 1442 by the Treaty of Nürtingen. When Count Eberhard V the Bearded united the two halves of the Duchy in 1482, he merged the governments of the two into the basis of the central government. An important department of this government was the chancery (Kanzlei), which had existed in Württemberg since 1482 and found its headquarters in the capital, Stuttgart. 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). To complement this was the central financial office (Landschreiberei), in essence the government treasury that received the taxes collected across the Duchy. District government The Ehrbarkeit held a variety of positions in local government as well as district government, which relied on a network of the Duchy's market towns, establishing a link between the town and the countryside. The most powerful official in a district was the bailiff (Vogt), who governed and supervised the functions of urban government in the name of the Duke from the district seat (Amtstadt). This position first appeared around 1425, but it took around seventy years for the functions of the bailiff to be fully established. By the end of the 15th century, this office had split into senior bailiff (Obervogt), typically a nobleman, and junior bailiff (Untervogt), who would preside in the absence of the senior bailiff and was usually himself a burgher. The senior bailiff, more free than his counterpart, was not restricted to serving