Around 1577, Ivan the Terrible’s troops had captured many lands and castles in the Riga diocese and elsewhere in Latvia. Including Cēsis.
The governor and scribe of Turaida, Jānis Bīrings (Johans Bīrings), had decided to take Cēsis from the Russians, because he had learned that a small number of soldiers had settled there. He organized a strike group of 100 Germans, 50 Polish soldiers, and 200 Latvian peasants. Taking two long ladders with them, the men arrived at the walls of the city of Cēsis at night. Bīrings ordered the ladders to be attached to the wall and part of the group to climb over.
A blacksmith from Cēsis also came to help, helping to open the gate, through which the other soldiers could then enter the city. The Russians, confused under cover of night, because they could not understand how large the enemy forces really were, languished in the cellars. That’s where Bīring’s men captured them.
In a similar way, Bīring also helped to liberate Limbaži, Burtnieki, Straupe and Nītauri from the invasions of the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible. As a thank you, he later received the Kolcene manor as a gift from the Polish king.
Although Bīring farmed here for no more than 20 years, the surrounding farmers, through the centuries, honoring their brave owner, called Kolcene manor Bīriņa (Bīringa) manor, until the place officially acquired the name Bīriņa during the independent Latvia.