Jever

Jever was a Frisian lordship centred on Jever in eastern Friesland. Under Frisian Freedom, local chieftains governed the region; tradition credited Edo Wiemken the Elder with uniting it in 1359, though a lasting union came later.

The Wiemkens resisted the Cirksena counts. The chieftain's daughter Maria was seized in her castle in 1527, but Brunswick mercenaries expelled the occupiers in 1531. On her death in 1575 Jever passed to Oldenburg, then to Anhalt-Zerbst in 1667 and Catherine the Great in 1793; Oldenburg annexed it in 1818.