Koknese

Koknese stands where the Pērse meets the Daugava, on a site once occupied by the Latgalian and Selonian settlement of Kukenois. A stone castle replaced its wooden stronghold in the early thirteenth century, and the bishops of Riga later made it a residence. The town, called Kokenhusen in German, received privileges in 1277 and prospered as a Hanseatic trading centre on the river.

The castle was disputed for generations between the archbishops and the Tiesenhausen family, until Archbishop John V restored it to the church in 1397. War returned to the Daugava in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1601 Polish cavalry defeated a larger Swedish force near Koknese, but Sweden later acquired and refortified the town. Russian forces took it in 1656 and built vessels here for the siege of Riga. During the Great Northern War Saxon troops captured the castle, then destroyed it in 1701 as they retreated before the Swedes.