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Grunwald Memorial in
Kraków, with Grunwald Swords carved in the pedestal.
Grunwald Swords were a gift presented by Ulrich von Jungingen, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order of Knights to King Ladislaus II of Poland and Grand Duke Vytautas the Great of Lithuania on July 15, 1410, just before the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg). The gift, a pair of simple bare swords, was a formal invitation to the battle. After the Polish-Lithuanian victory, both swords were taken as a war trophy by King Ladislaus to Kraków, Poland's capital at the time, and placed in the treasury of the Royal Wawel Castle.
With time, the two swords became treated as royal insignia, symbolising the monarch's reign over two nations, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They were probably used in coronations of most Polish kings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. In private hands after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century, they were lost without a trace in 1853. They remained, however, a symbol of victory and Poland's and Lithuania's past, and an important part of national identity of the two nations.
