Samogitia

Samogitia was a territory in western Lithuania, ruled by local nobles before becoming dependent on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the thirteenth century. Its people resisted the Teutonic Order even as Lithuanian rulers ceded the territory to the knights in 1382, 1398 and 1404.

Samogitian revolts broke out in 1401 and 1409. The Treaty of Melno returned Samogitia to Lithuania in 1422, and in 1441 Grand Duke Casimir granted its nobles the right to elect their own starosta. The duchy survived within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until its final partition in 1795.