Hoya

Hoya grew beside a strategically important crossing of the Weser, with a castle on a raised river terrace and settlement spreading into the surrounding river marsh. A bridge is documented from the fourteenth century. When the counts divided their territory around 1345, Hoya became the residence of the Lower County, while Nienburg served the Upper County. Market rights granted before 1368 helped sustain the settlement alongside its court and agricultural surroundings.

The two counties reunited in 1503, and Nienburg became the principal residence. Disputes with Brunswick-Lüneburg brought occupation and the expulsion of the counts in 1512. After the final count died in 1582, the dukes succeeded to the county and governed Hoya through an appointed official. War damaged both castle and town in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Craft organisation nevertheless developed: dyers received guild recognition in 1649, hatmakers in 1652, and further trades formed guilds during the eighteenth century.