Hoya

The counts of Hoya were a north German comital family seated at Hoya on the middle Weser. The first documented count, Henry, appeared in 1202 as a vassal of Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen; his descendants bought up the rival Hodenberg family's Weser estates until 1313. The acquisition of Nienburg in 1215 opened a long quarrel with the bishops of Minden.

In 1345 the brothers Gerhard III and John II divided the county between Hoya and Nienburg lines. The elder line died out in 1497 and the lands were reunited under Count Jobst I at Nienburg.

The Welf dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg occupied the county in 1512, forcing the counts to accept them as liege lords. When Count Otto VIII died without sons in 1582, Hoya was partitioned among the Calenberg and Lüneburg lines of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Hesse-Kassel.