Grunwald Swords

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The Grunwald Swords (Polish: miecze grunwaldzkie, Lithuanian: Žalgirio kalavijai) are a pair of simple bare swords sent as a mocking "gift" by Ulrich von Jungingen, the Grand Master of the Order of Teutonic Knights, to King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland and Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. The swords were sent on 15 July 1410, just before the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), as a symbolic invitation to engage Jungingen's forces in battle. After the Polish–Lithuanian victory, both swords were taken as a war trophy by King Władysław II 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 16th 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 have remained, however, a symbol of victory and Poland's and Lithuania's past, and an important part of national identity of the two nations.