Vilkmergė

Vilkmergė grew around a wooden fortress on a hill near the meeting of the Vilkmergė and Šventoji rivers. The Teutonic Knights and Livonian Order attacked it repeatedly in the fourteenth century, burning the settlement in 1391 so thoroughly that it had to be completely rebuilt. Its church of Saints Peter and Paul, founded in 1387, was among Lithuania's earliest Catholic churches after the grand duchy's conversion.

The town gained municipal rights after the Battle of Wiłkomierz in 1435 and became a county centre in Vilnius Voivodeship. Swedish and Russian armies plundered it in 1655, and plague struck in 1711–1712. King Stanisław August renewed its rights in 1792, but Russia annexed Vilkmergė three years later. During the November Uprising of 1831, insurgents held the town for several months.