Vlad III was born on Nov. 8, 1431 in Transylvania (part of modern Romania). Vlad was the son on Vlad II Dracul. The “Dracul” referred to his membership in a military fraternity called Order of the Dragon created by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to face the Ottoman Empire. Vlad II ruled a principality called Wallachia. Wallachia stood between Christian Europe (Hungary) and the Ottoman Empire. Vlad II swung from one side to the other. For a few years, his son Vlad was a hostage to the Ottomans to insure his father’s loyalty. He was taught science, philosophy and the arts. He became an accomplished rider and warrior. In 1447, when Vlad was about 18 years old, his father and older brother were murdered by Wallachian nobles. The next year, Vlad III was able to rise to power in Wallachia. In 1456, he defeated a Turkish invasion of Wallachia. He was credited with beheading the enemy leader in one-on-one combat. Not long after that, he invited many nobles to a banquet and had them stabbed and impaled. . Impaling involved the placing of a victim on a stake that had been hammered into the ground. The stake was rounded instead of pointed so the victim would not die quickly. It sometimes took days.
He would rule it three different times before his death in 1476. He had a reputation of being a competent, but harsh, ruler. He was considered a hero by even the Pope because of his wars with the Muslim Turks. The Pope apparently overlooked his killing of women and children because they were Muslims. When he took the city of Targoviste, he impaled 20,000 people outside its walls. Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, after seeing thousands of decaying bodies being picked apart by crows, ended his invasion and retreated to Constantinople. Vlad was an “end justifies the means” kind of prince. In 1476, when marching to battle with the Ottomans, he and his advance party were ambushed and he was killed and beheaded. The head was sent to the Ottoman ruler.
His cruelty made him infamous during his lifetime. Lurid stories about him were popular and most of the anecdotes were probably apocryphal. In a war with the Saxons of Transylvania, he impaled thousands of prisoners. The death was like crucifixion, but much more painful. Some lurid accounts had Vlad dining in the midst of the impaled. Some believed he dipped his bread in the blood of the impaled. In another story, two Ottoman envoys arrived at Vlad’s court. When they refused to remove their hats because of a religious custom, Vlad had them nailed to their heads. Another legend was that he impaled two monks to hasten their journey to Heaven. He also had their donkey impaled because it would not stop braying. In spite of this reputation for cruelty, Vlad became a Rumanian national hero for his wars against enemies of the future nation. He would be a forgotten historical person today, except for an author named Bram Stoker. Stoker published “Dracula” in 1897. He was apparently the inspiration for the bloodsucking Count.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler
https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/vlad-impaler-real-dracula-was-absolutely-vicious-8c11505315
0 Comments