The Black Dragon, Vlad the III, or Dracula

[mikec]

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Greetings Guys, and Gals;

..... As the 31 gets closer, and closer, I thought, I would make a Halloween post this year.


Enjoy.......



from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



........................................................................................................ Vlad the Impaler




Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476), also known by his patronymic Dracula (son of the Dragon (Vlad II) Dracul), and posthumously dubbed
Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș pronounced [ˈvlad ˈt͡sepeʃ]), was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462,
the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father was a member of the Order of the Dragon (Dracul) and Dracula means
son of the Dragon to indicate his father's title within the Order of the Dragon.

Vlad III is remembered for spending much of his rule campaigning efforts against the Ottoman Empire and its expansion and for the impaling of
enemies. Already during his lifetime, his reputation of excessive cruelty spread abroad, to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number
of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands [citation needed]. The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel
Dracula was inspired by Vlad's patronymic.









.....................................................................................................................Name



Further information: House of Drăculeşti



During his life Vlad wrote his name in Latin documents as Wladislaus Dragwlya, vaivoda partium Transalpinarum (1475)

His Romanian patronymic Dragwlya (or Dragkwlya) is a diminutive of the epithet Dracul "the Dragon" carried by his father Vlad II, who in 1431
was inducted as a member of the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric order founded by Sigismund of Hungary in 1408. Dracul is the Romanian
definite form, the -ul being the suffigated definite article (deriving from Latin ille). The noun drac "dragon" itself continues Latin drac-o.
In Modern Romanian, the word drac has adopted the meaning of "devil" (the term for "dragon" now being balaur).

This has led to misinterpretations of Vlad's epithet as characterizing him as "devilish".[citation needed]

Vlad's moniker of Țepeș ("Impaler") identifies his favourite method of execution. It was attached to his name posthumously, in ca. 1550.



.............................................................................................................. Early Life




Vlad was born in Sighișoara, Transylvania, in the winter of 1431 to Vlad II Dracul, future voivode of Wallachia and son of the celebrated
Voivode Mircea the Elder.




Vlad III's father, Vlad II "Dracul".









His mother is believed to be the second wife of Vlad Dracul, Princess Cneajna of Moldavia, eldest daughter of Alexandru cel Bun. He had two
older half-brothers, Mircea II and Vlad Călugărul, and a younger brother, Radu III the Fair.



The house where Vlad III, was born.

















In the year of his birth Vlad's father, known under the nickname Dracul, had traveled to Nuremberg where he had been vested into the Order
of the Dragon. At the age of five, young Vlad was also initiated into the Order.

Vlad and Radu spent their early formative years in Sighișoara under the care and tutelage of their mother and the wives of other exiled
boyars. During the first reign of their father, Vlad II Dracul, the Voivode brought his young sons to Târgoviște, the capital of Wallachia
at that time.



Modern day Sighisoara






















The Byzantine chancellor Mikhail Doukas showed that, at Târgoviște, the sons of boyars and ruling princes were well-educated by Romanian
or Greek scholars commissioned from Constantinople. Vlad is believed to have learned combat skills, geography, mathematics, science,
languages (Old Church Slavonic, German, Latin), and the classical arts and philosophy.




.......................................................................................................... Life in Edirne




In 1436, Vlad II Dracul ascended the throne of Wallachia. He was ousted in 1442 by rival factions in league with Hungary, but secured
Ottoman support for his return agreeing to pay the Jizya (tax on non-Muslims) to the Sultan and also send his two legitimate sons, Vlad
III and Radu, to the Ottoman court, to serve as hostages of his royalty.

Vlad III was imprisoned and often whipped and beaten because of his verbal abuse towards his trainers and his stubborn behavior, while
his younger brother Radu was much easier to control. Radu converted to Islam, entered the service of Sultan Murad II's son, Mehmed II
(later known as the Conqueror), and was allowed into the Topkapı Palace. Radu was also honored by the title Bey and was given command
of the Janissary contingents.

These years presumably had a great influence on Vlad's character and led to Vlad's well-known hatred for the Ottoman Turks, the
Janissary, his brother Radu for converting to Islam and the young Ottoman prince Mehmed II (even after he became sultan). He was envious
of his father's preference for his elder brother, Mircea II and half brother, Vlad Călugărul. He also distrusted the Hungarians and his
own father for trading him to the Turks and betraying the Order of the Dragon's oath to fight the Ottoman Empire.

Vlad was later released under probation and taken to be educated in logic, the Quran and the Turkish and Persian languages and works of
literature. He would speak these languages fluently in his later years. He and his brother were also trained in warfare and riding
horses. The boys' father, Vlad Dracul, was awarded the support of the Ottomans and returned to Wallachia and took back his throne from
Basarab II and some unfaithful Boyars.



................................................................................................... First reign and exile




In December 1447, boyars in league with the Hungarian regent John Hunyadi rebelled against Vlad Dracul II, and killed him in the marshes
near Bălteni.

Mircea, Dracul's eldest son and heir, was blinded and buried alive at Târgoviște.




Targoviste, the old capital of Wallachia.
























To prevent Wallachia from falling into the Hungarian fold, the Ottomans invaded Wallachia and put young Vlad III on the throne. However,
this rule was short-lived as Hunyadi himself now invaded Wallachia and restored his ally Vladislav II, of the Dănești clan, to the
throne.

Vlad fled to Moldavia, where he lived under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II. In October 1451, Bogdan was assassinated and Vlad
fled to Hungary.
Impressed by Vlad's vast knowledge of the mindset and inner workings of the Ottoman Empire as well as his hatred of the new sultan Mehmed
II, Hunyadi reconciled with his former rival and made him his advisor.

After the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453, Ottoman influence began to spread from this base through the Carpathians,
threatening mainland Europe, and by 1481 conquering the entire Balkans peninsula. Vlad's rule thus falls entirely within the three decades
of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.

In 1456, three years after the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople, they threatened Hungary by besieging Belgrade. Hunyadi began a
concerted counter attack in Serbia: while he himself moved into Serbia and relieved the siege (before dying of the plague), Vlad led his
own contingent into Wallachia, reconquered his native land and killed Vladislav II in hand-to-hand combat.[citation needed]




............................................................................................................ Second reign



........................................................................................................... Internal policy



Vlad found Wallachia in a wretched state: constant war had resulted in rampant crime, falling agricultural production, and the virtual
disappearance of trade. Regarding a stable economy essential to resisting external enemies, he used severe methods to restore order
and prosperity.

Vlad had three aims for Wallachia: to strengthen the country's economy, its defense and his own political power. He took measures to help
the peasants' well-being by building new villages and raising agricultural output. He understood the importance of trade for the development
of Wallachia. He helped the Wallachian merchants by limiting foreign merchant trade to three market towns: Târgșor, Câmpulung and Târgoviște.

Vlad considered the boyars the chief cause of the constant strife as well as of the death of his father and brother. To secure his rule, he
had many leading nobles killed and gave positions in his council, traditionally belonging to the greatest boyars, to persons of obscure
origins, who would be loyal to him alone, and some to foreigners. For lower offices, Vlad preferred knights and free peasants to boyars.
In his aim of cleaning up Wallachia, Vlad gave new laws punishing thieves and robbers. Vlad treated the boyars with the same harshness,
believing them guilty of weakening Wallachia through their internal struggles for power.

The army was also strengthened. He had a small personal guard, mostly made of mercenaries, who were rewarded with loot and promotions. He
also established a militia or ‘lesser army’ made up of peasants called to fight whenever war came.

Vlad Dracula built a church at Târgșor (allegedly in the memory of his father and older brother who were killed nearby), and he contributed
with money to the Snagov Monastery and to the Comana Monastery fortifications.

Snagov Monastery








Trident Orthodox Monastery at Targor.








................................................................................................. Raids into Transylvania




Since the Wallachian nobility was linked to the Transylvanian Saxons, Vlad also acted against them by eliminating their trade privileges and
raiding their cities. In 1459, he had several Saxon settlers of Brașov (Kronstadt) impaled.













City in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.









................................................................................................... War with the Ottomans



Vlad allied himself with Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi (János Hunyadi), the King of Hungary. Wallachia was claimed as a part of the
Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed II. In 1459, Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans, at the Congress of Mantua. The only
European leader that showed enthusiasm for the crusade was Vlad Țepeș.



Mathias Corvinus, the King of Hungary.

















............................................................................................................... Mehmed II



Mehmed II









Later that year, in 1459, Mehmed sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay a delayed Jizya (tax on non-Muslims) of 10,000 ducats and 500 recruits
into the Ottoman forces. Vlad refused. In order to provoke and instigate war with the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, Vlad had the Turkish envoys
killed on the pretext that they had refused to raise their "hats" to him, by nailing their turbans to their heads.

Meanwhile, the Sultan received intelligence reports that revealed Vlad's domination of the Danube. He sent the Bey of Nicopolis and Hamza
Pasha, to make peace and/or eliminate Vlad III.

Vlad Țepeș planned to set an ambush. Hamza Pasha, the Bey of Nicopolis brought with him 10,000 cavalry and when passing through a narrow pass
north of Giurgiu, Vlad launched a surprise-attack. The Wallachians had the Turks surrounded and defeated. The Turks' plans were thwarted and
almost all of them caught and impaled, with Hamza Pasha impaled on the highest stake to show his rank.









In the winter of 1462, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the entire Bulgarian land in the area between Serbia and the Black Sea.
Disguising himself as a Turkish Sipahi, he infiltrated and destroyed Ottoman camps. In a letter to Corvinus dated 2 February he wrote:

I have killed peasants men and women, old and young, who lived at Oblucitza and Novoselo, where the Danube flows into the sea, up to Rahova,
which is located near Chilia, from the lower Danube up to such places as Samovit and Ghighen. We killed 23,884 Turks without counting those
whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers...Thus, your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace
with him (Sultan Mehmet II).








In response to this, Sultan Mehmed II raised an army of around 60,000 troops and 30,000 irregulars and in 1462 headed towards Wallachia.
Commanding only 40,000 men, Vlad was unable to stop the Ottomans from entering Wallachia and occupying the capital Târgoviște. He was
constantly organizing small attacks and ambushes on the Turks, such as The Night Attack when 15,000 Turks were killed.

Vlad III defeated Ottoman Sipahi commanders such as Iosuf Bey, Ömer Bey Turahanoğlu and Evrenos Bey. This infuriated Mehmed II, who
then crossed the Danube.
Vlad the Impaler's attack was celebrated by the Saxon cities of Transylvania, the Italian states and the Pope. A Venetian envoy, upon
hearing about the news at the court of Corvinus on 4 March, expressed great joy and said that the whole of Christianity should celebrate
Vlad Țepeș's successful campaign. The Genoese from Caffa also thanked Vlad, for his campaign had saved them from an attack of some 300
ships that the sultan planned to send against them.


.................................................................................................................. Defeat




Vlad III's younger brother, the highly capable Radu Bey, and his Janissary battalions were given the task of leading the Ottoman Empire
to victory at all expense by Sultan Mehmet II. After the Sipahis' incursions failed to subdue Vlad, the few remaining Sipahis were
killed in a night raid by Vlad III in 1462.
However as the war raged on, Radu and his formidable Janissary battalion was well supplied with a steady flow of gunpowder and dinars;
this advantage allowed them to push deeper into the realm of Vlad III. Radu and his well-equipped forces finally besieged Poenari Castle,
the famed lair of Vlad III. After his difficult victory Radu was then given the title Bey of Wallachia by Sultan Mehmet II.

Vlad III's defeat at Poenari was due in part to the fact that the Boyars, who had been alienated by Vlad's policy of undermining their
authority, had joined Radu under the assurance that they would regain their privileges. They may have also believed that Ottoman protection
was better than Hungarian. It was said as well that Radu (through his spies or traitors) found the place where some Boyars' families were
hidden during the war (probably some forests around Snagov) and blackmailed them to come to his side.



Vlad III's Castle, at Poenari.







































By 8 September, Vlad won another three victories, but continuous war had left him without any money and he could no longer pay his
mercenaries. Vlad traveled to Hungary to ask for help from his former ally, Matthias Corvinus. But instead of receiving help, he found
himself arrested and thrown into the dungeon for high treason. Corvinus, not planning to get involved in a war after having spent the
Papal money meant for it on personal expenses, forged a letter from Vlad III to the Ottomans where he supposedly proposed a peace with
them, to give an explanation for the Pope and a reason to not continue the war and return to his capital.


More Later... :fencing ...,


Mike
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[mikec]

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Greetings Halloween fans;

If the historians have told the tell some-what
correct. We wonder. Also I have recessions to wonder
about the Roman Catholic Church, at this time period.

..... Actually, I have many questions, after researching
this subject.

Anyway....... Part II




....................................................................................................................First marriage






Vlad's first wife, according to local legend, was a noblewoman who died during the siege of Poenari Castle, which was surrounded by the Ottoman army
led by his brother Radu Bey and the Wallachian Janissary. A woodland archer, having seen the shadow of Vlad's wife behind a window, shot an arrow
through the window into Vlad's main quarters with a message warning him that Radu's army was approaching. McNally and Florescu explain that the
archer was one of Vlad's relatives who sent the warning out of loyalty despite having converted to Islam and served in the ranks of Radu Bey. Upon
reading the message, Vlad's wife threw herself from the tower into a tributary of the Argeș River flowing below the castle, saying she would rather
rot and be eaten by the fish of the Argeș than be led into captivity by the Turks. Today, the tributary is called Râul Doamnei (the "Lady's River",
also called the Princess's River). This legend is the only known historical reference to Vlad's first marriage.




............................................................................................................. Captivity in Hungary



Matthias Corvinus had received consistent financial support from the Pope to fight against the Turks. But he had spent the money on completely different
purposes. He now had the Ottomans at his borders and needed someone to use as a scapegoat.

When Vlad came to him to ask for his help with fighting the war, Matthias Corvinus arrested him using false documents: a forged letter, in which Vlad
supposedly pledged loyalty to Mehmed II and promised to strike an agreement with the Ottomans over Wallachia.

Vlad was imprisoned at Oratia, a fortress located at Podu Dâmboviței Bridge. A period of imprisonment in Visegrád near Buda followed, where the Wallachian
prince was held for 10 years. Then he was imprisoned in Buda.

The exact length of Vlad's period of captivity is open to some debate, though indications are that it was from 1462 until 1474. Diplomatic correspondence
from Buda seems to indicate that the period of Vlad's effective confinement was relatively short. Radu's openly pro-Ottoman policy as voivode probably
contributed to Vlad's rehabilitation.

.................................................................................................................. Second marriage




Gradually winning back King Matthias's favour, he married Ilona Szilágyi, a cousin of the king, and in the years before his final release in 1474, lived
with her in a house in the Hungarian capital.

Around 1465, Ilona bore him two sons: the elder, Vlad IV Dracula, spent most of his time in the king's retinue and later was an unsuccessful claimant to
the Wallachian throne. The younger, whose name is unknown, lived with the Bishop of Oradea in Transylvania until 1482, when he fell ill. He returned to
Buda, where he died in his mother's presence. The descendants of Vlad and Ilona married into Hungarian nobility.



Black Eagle palase, unknown son of Vlad III lived, with the Bishop of Oradea.









.............................................................................................. Third reign and death



After the sudden death of his brother Radu III the Fair in the year 1475, Vlad III declared his third reign in 26 November 1476. Vlad
began preparations for the reconquest of Wallachia and in 1476, with Hungarian support, invaded the country and crossed the river Danube.
Vlad’s third reign lasted little more than two months when he was assassinated. The exact date of his death is unknown, but it is known
that he was dead by 10 January 1477. The exact location of his death is also unknown, but it would have been somewhere along the road
between Bucarest and Giurgiu. Vlad's head was taken to Constantinople as a trophy, and his body was buried unceremoniously by his rival,
Basarab Laiota, possibly at Comana, a monastery founded by Vlad in 1461. The Comana monastery was demolished and rebuilt from scratch
in 1589.

In the 19th century, Romanian historians cited a "tradition", apparently without any kind of support in documentary evidence, that Vlad
was buried at Snagov, an island monastery located near Bucharest. To support this theory, the so-called Cantacuzino Chronicle was cited,
which cites Vlad as the founder of this monastery. But as early as 1855, Alexandru Odobescu had established that this is impossible as
the monastery had been in existence before 1438. Since excavations carried out by Dinu V Rosetti in June–October 1933, it has become
clear that Snagov monastery was founded during the later 14th century, well before the time of Vlad III. The 1933 excavation also
established that there was no tomb below the supposed "unmarked tombstone" of Vlad in the monastery church. Rosetti (1935) reported
that “Under the tombstone attributed to Tepes there was no tomb. Only many bones and jaws of horses." In the 1970s, speculative
attribution of an anonymous tomb found elsewhere in the church to Vlad Tepes was published Simion Saveanu, a journalist who wrote a
series of articles on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Vlad's death.














..................................................................................................... Legacy

............................................................................................. Reputation for cruelty





Vlad the Impaler as Pontius Pilate judging Jesus Christ. National Gallery, Ljubljana, 1463[citation needed]









Vlad the Impaler as Aegeas, the Roman proconsul in Patras, crucifying Saint Andrew. Approximately 1470–1480, Belvedere Galleries,
Vienna[citation needed]









Even during his lifetime, Vlad III Țepeș became famous as a tyrant taking sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing. He is shown in
cryptoportraits made during his lifetime in the role of cruel rulers or executioners such as Pontius Pilate ordering the torture and
execution of Jesus Christ, or as Aegeas, the Roman proconsul in Patras, overseeing the crucifixion of Saint Andrew.[citation needed]
After Vlad's death, his cruel deeds were reported with macabre gusto in popular pamphlets in Germany, reprinted from
the 1480s until the 1560s, and to a lesser extent in Tsarist Russia.









Estimates for number of his victims ranges from 40,000 to 100,000, comparable to the cumulative number of executions over four
centuries of European witchhunts. According to the German stories the number of victims he had killed was at least 80,000. In
addition to the 80,000 victims mentioned he also had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground. These numbers
are most likely exaggerated.

Impalement was Vlad's preferred method of torture and execution. Several of the woodcut from the German pamphlets of the late 15th and
early 16th centuries show Vlad feasting in a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside Brașov, while a nearby executioner cuts
apart other victims. It was reported that an invading Ottoman army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses
impaled on the banks of the Danube. It has also been said that in 1462 Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, a man noted for his
own psychological warfare tactics, returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled corpses outside Vlad's
capital of Târgoviște.

Allegedly, the reputation of Vlad's cruelty was actively promoted by Matthias Corvinus, who tarnished Vlad’s reputation and credibility
for a political reason: as an explanation for why he had not helped Vlad fight the Ottomans in 1462, for which purpose he had received
money from most Catholic states in Europe.[citation needed] Matthias employed the charges of Southeastern Transylvania, and produced
fake letters of high treason, written on 7 November 1462.[citation needed]



............................................................................................... Miscellaneous photos








Artist representation of Vlad III's castle.


















Statue of Vlad III....... He is viewed as a liberator, by now day Romanians













This Ends the Holloween post. With more questions that answeers ...........



.... :nothingtoad ....,

Mike
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[reconron]

Once again,...thanks for researching and sharing Mike!!!

After reading this thread I got the urge to see that great Francis Ford Coppola movie again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k7leC4YClrI


Greetings,Ron.

 

[mikec]

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Greetings Ron;


.... Thank you, my frind for your coments.
unfotionitly, I hoped we would get a few more
people into this group, and be able to have a
discusion....................... May-haps
be, some day.

Be Cool,

Mike

 

[kryptosdaddy]

I don't have much to discuss, just a comment.
There has been a scarcity of evidence as to what Vlad used to stake his victims for display.
This was at a time where everything was made by hand and certainly carving thousands of stakes from the local hardwood would leave some evidence even today.
In view of this it is believed by some that they stripped the trees in forests down to thier trunks and dropped the bodies down the length. The root systems would certainly support the weight even in the winds and during storms.
We can't fathom how vicious the medieval world really was.

 

[jknaus]

From the small amount that I've read, Vlad did not start impaling victims until after his first stay in prison. There he used to impale bugs and watch them for hours. The big impalement for which he will never be forgotten came about as a way to scare the daylights out of his Ottoman foes. He won a small skirmish of around a thousand advance troops and impaled them all. Because he did not have the full might of the people behind him he had to do things such as this to make his much much larger enemy fear him. This single act scared them so bad that the Ottoman army constantly lost people to desertion afterwards and also caused the army to enter into attacks timidly.
James

 

[kryptosdaddy]

I'm no expert either James, but the medieval world was full of sick puppies- Elizabeth Bathory tops my list. You know Stoker never visited Transylvania- he was Irish.

 

[mikec]

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Greetings James,

This is a subject that I tolled myself that we
would not discust on the web, for the sake
of mis-understandings.

To answer you question.... I agree.


Mike
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