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Vlad III Dracula (Also known as Vlad Ţepeş /tse'pesh/ in Romanian or Vlad the Impaler) born November/December, 1431 - died December 1476, and reigned as Prince of Wallachia 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476. He was born in Sighişoara, a small town in Transylvania. He lead an independent policy in relation with the Ottoman Empire. He is known in Turkish as Kaziglu Bey, or "the Impaler Prince", and is a popular folk hero in Romania and Moldova even today. His post-mortem nickname Ţepeş/Impaler comes from the method of execution by impalement, propagated by the medieval Transylvanian brochures.
The Family of Vlad III
The Wallachia crown was not passed automatically from father to son, but rather the leader was elected by the boyars. Although this system was vastly more democratic than most contemporary systems of governance, it did result in instability, family disputes and assassinations. Finally the royal house became split between the descendants of Prince Mircea the Old (Dracula's grandfather) and those of another prince: Dan II: the Dăneşti.
Mircea had many sons, among them was Vlad, born c. 1390. Vlad was illegitimate and was brought up at the court of King Sigismund of Hungary. Sigismund, who later became Holy Roman Emperor founded a secret order of knights called the Order of the Dragon to defend Catholicism from the Ottomans and the Eastern Church. Vlad was inducted into this order and became known in Wallachia as "Vlad the Dragon" or "Vlad II Dracul".
In 1431 King Sigismund made Vlad Dracul governor of Transylvania and it was here that his second son, also named Vlad was born. Vlad would be known as "Son of the Dragon" or "Dracula".
In 1436, Vlad Dracul's ambitions lead him to gather supporters for an attempt to seize the throne of Wallachia. This he did, killing the incumbent king, a Dăneşti, named Alexandru I Aldea, and crowned himself Vlad II.
Vlad's position, however was far from secure. He was liege of Hungary, and he had to pay tribute to the Ottoman sultan Murad II. When the Turks invaded Transylvania in 1442, Vlad was accused by Ulaszlo_I_of_Hungary of failing to properly defend the approaches to Transylvania from the south (i.e., the passes leading from Wallachia to Transylvania) and forced Vlad out of Wallachia. Vlad and his family appealed to Murad_II for assistance, and regained the throne the following year. To show his gratitude he sent his two younger sons, Vlad and Radu the Handsome to Adrianople. Vlad Dracula was 13, and for the next four years he was held in the Ottoman Empire as a hostage.
Shortly after, however, Hungary declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Vlad Dracul was summoned to join the crusade, and as a member of the Order of the Dragon he could not refuse outright, but, not wishing to anger the captors of his younger sons he sent his eldest son Mircea in his place. The crusade was a failure, and the Christian armies were crushed at the Battle of Varna. Vlad fell further out of favour with Hungary.
In 1447 both Vlad Dracul and Mircea were murdered on Hungarian orders by the Boyar council, and a puppet king was installed in Wallachia. This displeased the Turks, so they freed the 17 year old Vlad Dracula and gave him an army. He regained the throne becoming Vlad III, but was quickly forced out by Hungary, who again installed a puppet ruler, Vladislav II.
However Vladislav II, switched sides to support the Ottoman Turks, and so Vlad Dracula was able to gain Ladislaus' support for a fresh attempt to win the throne. He killed Vladislav in 1456 and ruled a united Wallachia until 1462, when the then king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus (who was also of a Wallachian nobleman lineage) fell out with him and invaded Wallachia. After a dozen years as Matthias's prisoner in Buda, he was again reinstated as the ruler of Wallachia.
The Reign of Vlad III Soon after gaining his throne, Vlad invited the Boyars to his castle in Targoviste. After a day of festivities, Vlad impaled everyone to avenge the death of his father.
During his reign, Vlad was called Tepes (although he called himself Dracula or the son of the leader of the Dracul order) by his people and his enemies.
He was greatly disliked, but his buffer position between Europe and the Ottoman invaders made him key to European defense. Using his armies, he killed so many Turks that the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II himself laid siege on Targoviste. Vlad fled, but left impaled corpses of Muslims and used the burnt earth policy.
Eventually, he regained his throne, but Mathias Corwin captured Vlad and imprisoned him. Once again he was let free after he converted from Eastern Orthodox to Roman Catholicism. During this reign, Vlad was killed and his head was gifted to the Ottoman Sultan.
Reputation Woodblock print of Vlad III attending a mass impalement. Vlad's reign is best known, at least outside Romania, for his cruelty. Many of the stories have an element of legend; it is hard to know how much the tales have grown in the telling.
Many accounts of Vlad's rule come from propaganda pamphlets printed by ethnic Germans, utilizing the then recent invention of the printing press. According to these accounts, he had a terrifying habit of pillaging certain towns under his rule, and murdering great numbers of people. These towns tended to be ones that held high concentrations of ethnic Germans, hence the propaganda. The most famous picture of Vlad is a woodblock print from one of these pamphlets depicting Vlad eating his dinner on a grassy hill surrounded by a forest of dead bodies. True to his name, most of the victims were impaled. The pamphlets also claim that to massacre more victims at once, he would herd peasants over cliffsides onto beds of spikes below. From these victims he was able to create an infamous "forest of the impaled" surrounding his capital to dissuade any attacking army from invading.
Other examples of his notoriety abound in other European records of history and folklore. On one occasion Vlad is supposed to have invited many beggars to his castle, then burnt it to the ground, killing them all, so that nobody would be poor in his kingdom. (However, this may be a reattribution, as the same gambit is also attributed to Hatto II of Mainz, archbishop from 968-970, and sometimes attributed to Hatto I.)
When an Ottoman emissary invoked his custom, when refused to remove his turban when in Vlad's presence, Vlad told him that he wished only to strengthen and honour the Ottoman custom - then nailed the emissary's turban to his head.
Conversely, just as Vlad responded harshly to insult, he responded favourably to flattery. Allegedly, when a messenger arrived with news from neighboring Hungary, Vlad grew very angry, and invited him to dinner. Seeing the dining room filled with dead and dying people impaled on stakes, and guards behind him holding a gold-plated stake, the messenger grew very anxious. When Vlad asked him if he knew why he was asked to dinner, the messenger thought quickly and responded, "I do not know, but I know you are a wise and great ruler, and no matter what you command, even if you were to command my death, it should be done". Impressed, Vlad waved the soldiers away, and said "Had you not answered so well, I would have impaled you on the spot." The messenger was showered with gifts, before being sent back to Hungary.
Another anecdote accounts that there was once a foreign merchant who was in Vlad's capital city. The merchant left his wagon out, knowing the strict punishment for breaking the law. When he came back to the wagon in the morning he found that 16 ducats were missing. He went to Dracula and told him of the stolen money. Vlad told him he would have his money by sundown. He then told the people that if they did not find the thief then he (Vlad) would burn the city. He then told one of his servants to place 17 ducats in the merchant's wagon. After the merchant discovered the ducats, he went to Dracula and told him that there was an extra ducat. At this point the thief was brought to Dracula who ordered him impaled, and Dracula also told the merchant that if he had not returned the extra ducat, he would have been impaled along with the thief.
It became widely known that Wallachian justice was harsh and Vlad had many criminals impaled, regardless of their crimes. In another anecdote, two wandering monks arrived in Targoviste and saw for themselves the draconian punishments implemented by Vlad. When summoned to his castle, Vlad asked them what they thought of his rule. One monk commended him for keeping law and order in the kingdom, while another harshly denounced Vlad as the Devil because of his cruelty. It is not known which of the monks Vlad ordered impaled.
On a kinder note, another story tells that Vlad placed a golden cup at a well travelled spring so travelers could drink. Not once during his entire reign was the cup ever stolen.
Some legends say that he was taken captive by the Hungarians. Then, they supposedly burned out his eyes and buried him alive. The next day, they dug up the spot where he was buried and found no corpse. Several years later there were numerous mysterious deaths at his castle.
Count Dracula, the monstrous central character of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is thought to be named after Vlad, but it is unclear whether the resemblance is any more than superficial; recent research suggests that Stoker knew little of the Prince of Wallachia. (See Dracula - Origins for more detail). In his novel Children of the Night, Dan Simmons creates a history for the character that merges events from the life of the real Vlad Dracula with Stoker's vampire.
Of the recent literary works written in Romania about the real Vlad, at least Marin Sorescu's contemporary play Vlad Dracula, the Impaler has been translated into English.
References - Dracula: Prince of Many Faces (1989). Florescu, Radu R. and Mcnally, Raymond T. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316286559.
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