Skirsnemunė is a village in Jurbarkas district municipality

Jurbarkas district municipality

Jurbarkas district municipality is one of 60 municipalities in Lithuania....

, Tauragė County

Taurage County

Tauragė County is one of ten counties in Lithuania. It is in the west of the country, and its capital is Tauragė...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

. It is situated on the Neman River

Neman River

Neman or Niemen or Nemunas, is a major Eastern European river rising in Belarus and flowing through Lithuania before draining into the Curonian Lagoon and then into the Baltic Sea at Klaipėda. It is the northern border between Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast in its lower reaches...

 about 9 km from Jurbarkas

Jurbarkas

Jurbarkas is a city in Tauragė County, Lithuania. It is on the right-hand shore of the Neman River at its confluence with the tributaries Mituva and Imsre...

. According to the 2001 census, it had 950 residents. The village traces it history to Christmemel

Christmemel

Christmemel was a frontier fortress of the Teutonic Knights on the banks of the Neman River. It was constructed of wood and earth between April 8 and 22, 1313, by Grand Master Karl von Trier...

, a fortress built by the Teutonic Knights

Teutonic Knights

The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem , commonly the Teutonic Order , is a German medieval military order, in modern times a purely religious Catholic order...

 on a nearby hill fort

Hill fort

A hill fort is a type of earthworks used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Some were used in the post-Roman period...

 in 1313. The fortress was abandoned in 1328. The town church was funded by the last will of Mykolas, son of Jonas Kęsgaila

Jonas Kesgaila

Jonas Kęsgaila was a Lithuanian nobleman, son of Mykolas Kęsgaila of the Kęsgaila family. He fathered two sons and two daughters....

, in 1523. Skirsnemunė received Magdeburg rights

Magdeburg rights

Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of the German city of Magdeburg and developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was...

in 1792.