Dracula

East Central and Eastern Europe

in the Middle Ages, 450–1450

General Editor

Florin Curta

VOLUME 46

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ecee

 Dracula
By

Matei Cazacu

Edited, with an Introduction, by

Stephen W. Reinert

Translations by

Nicole Mordarski, Stephen W. Reinert

Alice Brinton, and Catherine Healey

LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustrations: Front: © The British Library Board. Frontispiece woodcut portrait of Vlad Dracula from
Hans Sporer’s 1491 pamphlet Ein wünderliche und erschröckenliche hystori von einem groszen wüttrich genant
Dracole wayda. Back: Portrait of Vlad Dracula, Ochsenbach Stammbuch, Fol. 74r HB.XV.2. With kind
permission of the Württemburgische Landesbibliothek.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cazacu, Matei, author. | Nizet, Marie, 1859–1922. Capitaine Vampire. Title: Dracula / by Matei Cazacu ;
 edited, with an introduction, by Stephen W. Reinert ; translations from the French, etc. by Nicole
 Mordarski, Stephen W. Reinert, Alice Brinton, and Catherine Healey.
Other titles: Dracula. English
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages,
 1450–1450 ; volume 46 | “Editions Tallandier, 2011.” | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017021919 (print) | LCCN 2017022384 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004349216 (E-book) |
 ISBN 9789004347250 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, 1430 or 1431–1476 or 1477. | Wallachia—Kings and rulers—
 Biography. | Vampires. | Dracula films—History and criticism. | Dracula, Count (Fictitious character) |
 Stoker, Bram, 1847–1912. Dracula.
Classification: LCC DR240.5.V553 (ebook) | LCC DR240.5.V553 C39 2017 (print) | DDC 949.8/014092
 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021919

Dracula
© Editions Tallandier, 2011
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appointed agents L’Autre agence and 2 Seas Literary Agency.

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issn 1872-8103
isbn 978-90-04-34725-0 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-34921-6 (e-book)

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Contents

Preface to the 2004 Edition, by Matei Cazacu ix

Introduction to the 2004 Edition, by Matei Cazacu xii
Introduction to the English Translation, by Stephen W. Reinert xxi
List of Abbreviations xxvi
List of Illustrations, Genealogies, and Map xxviii
Map and Genealogies xxx

1 Exile as a Way of Life 1

“A Fortress on the Water” 1
The Basarab Dynasty 3
Mircea the Old 6
The Ottoman Danger 7
Wallachia—Strategic and Economic Issues 9
The Succession Crisis of 1420 11
Vlad Dracul’s Youth 13
Transylvania, Land of Welcome 18
Vlad Dracul, Protector of Transylvanians 22
Finally, the Throne of Wallachia 26

2 A Prince and His Sons (1436–1448) 27

A Peace Treaty with Murad II 27
The Remarriage of Vlad Dracul 31
Murad II’s 1438 Campaign in Transylvania 32
Vladislav, King of Poland and Hungary 35
János Hunyadi, Defender of the Transylvanian Frontier 36
Vlad Dracul, Prisoner of the Turks 38
The Disaster of Varna 43
The Campaign of 1445 on the Danube 45
The Conflict with János Hunyadi and the Death of Vlad Dracul 49
Vladislav II Installed on the Wallachian Throne 52

3 First Reign and New Exile (1448–1456) 54

A Transylvanian Childhood 54
A Wallachian Adolescence 58
Hostage in Ottoman Territory (1444–1448) 63
Dracula’s First Reign (1448) 66
vi Contents

Exile in Moldavia 69
The Accord with János Hunyadi 76

4 The Reign (1456–1462) 79

“Mark of Red Iron” 79
“A Fierce and Dreadful Appearance” 84
The Princely Council of Wallachia 88
Wallachian Society in the Fifteenth Century 92
Very Restless Neighbors 97
“To Rule and Govern Accordingly” 103
Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary (1458) 108
Vlad Dracula Alone Against Everyone 114
Bloody Easter 117
“And Beheaded Him Near His Tomb …” 124
A Moldavian Danger? 130

5 The Conqueror of Constantinople 135

Five Hundred Young Men 136
Dracula’s Danubian Campaign 141
Alone Against the Turks 145
Warrior of the Night 148
Radu the Handsome Assumes Power 156
Crusade or Internal Peace? 160

6 Propaganda, Exile, and Death (1463–1476) 164

The Improbable Treachery 164
The 1463 German Pamphlet 167
The Hungarian Manipulation 173
Dracula’s Liberation 176
“But He Was Pierced by Many Lances …” 179
A Face Covered With a Silk Cloth 182
Vlad and Mihnea: The Children of “The Devil” 185
The Descendants of the Sons of the Impaler 191

7 Tyrant or Great Sovereign? 199

The Evolving Die Geschicht Dracole Waide (The History of Voievod
Dracula) 200
The Incarnation of Evil 205
A Pious Prince? 209
Contents vii

Dracula “The Beloved” 216

Discovery of the Russian Accounts of Dracula 219
The Tale of Voievod Dracula, A Political Manual Used by
Ivan III 222
Laonikos Chalkokondyles 234
In the Entourage of Mahmud Pasha 237
Chalkokondyles’ Disappearance 243

8 Dracula and Bram Stoker 248

Of Bats in General … 248
… and of Dracula in Particular 251
“Not On the Lips But On the Throat …” 253
Stoker a Plagiarist? 260
Marie Nizet and her Captain Vampire 262
The Romanian “Journey” of Marie Nizet 263
A Family History 269
Billy the Kid Versus Dracula 274
A New Golden Age 275

9 The Vampire in Romania 279

How to Proceed with a Strigoi 280
The Vampire’s Identity Card 285
The Christianization of Vampirism 288
Vitamin C, Weapon Against Vampires 294

Conclusion 301
Dead Vampires and Living Vampires 302

Appendices

Chronology 307
Geschichte Dracole Waide (Anonymous, 1463) 310
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei
(Michel Beheim, 1463, or as late as 1466) 317
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ (Laonikos Chalkokondyles, c. 1423–c. 1474)
Historiarum Demonstrationes (Proofs of History) 347
Skazanie o Drakule voevode (Fyodor Kuritsyn, 1486) 357
Die Geschicht Dracole Waide (Anonymous, 1488) 364
viii Contents

Glossary of Terms 370
Illustrations 375
Bibliography 391
Index of Personal Names 445
Preface to the 2004 Edition
Matei Cazacu

The story of this book goes back almost forty years. As a young student at
the University of Bucharest, I completed a master’s thesis entitled Vlad the
Impaler: A Historical Monograph (1969).1 The topic, which might seem strange,
was suggested to me by Professor Constantin C. Giurescu (1901–1977), the most
celebrated Romanian historian of the times, who was also overseeing the work
of an American of Romanian origin, Radu R. Florescu, recipient of a Fulbright
scholarship to Bucharest. We thus formed a little band of Dracula enthusiasts
keenly on the track of both the medieval prince known as “The Impaler,” as
well as Bram Stoker’s Transylvanian vampire. This darker side of our research
was the specialty of Florescu’s colleague Raymond T. McNally. Together with
George D. Florescu, Radu’s Romanian uncle, and Mihai Pop, Director of the
Bucharest Institute of Ethnography and Folklore, we toured Romania exten-
sively, following in the footsteps our “hero.” Neither castles, monasteries, aban-
doned churches, lost Carpathian villages, nor German cities in Transylvania
kept their secrets from our team.
Of all our countless expeditions, Castle Dracula proved itself especially dif-
ficult to “conquer.” A first attempt involved a shortcut to the fortress which in
reality led nowhere. On our second visit, seventy-five year old “Uncle George”
accidentally fell and broke his hip. Our third try seemed promising. Once
we arrived at the castle, however, McNally was brutally paralyzed and was
found prostrate on the ground, unable to go any further. I then jokingly raised
the spectre of “Dracula’s curse on Florescu,” stemming from the enmity his
boyar ancestor Vintilă bore to Dracula in 1468, five hundred years before our
mountain climbing ventures in the Carpathians. This alleged curse disturbed
Florescu terribly and he always armed himself with a little icon on our expedi-
tions. Around the same time, a friend told me that, as a child, she used to pray
before a picture of Vlad the Impaler as if he were a patron saint. Should I view
this one-of-a-kind saint as the protector who enabled me to escape the terrible
scrutiny of the Securitate, the political police of Ceaușescu, who himself was
so passionate about Vlad the Impaler? It is true that in the early 1970s I had
emerged as the only specialist in this field in the country, and the minister for
Romanian Tourism had even asked me to write the guide for the Dracula tours

1  “Vlad Ţepeș: Monografie istorică [Vlad the Impaler: A Historical Monograph]” (Master’s the-
sis, Facultatea de Istorie, Universitatea din București, 1969).
x Preface To The 2004 Edition

targeted for western tourists. My renown rested on the discovery of Vlad’s hith-
erto unknown first reign in 1448, which I had published in a scholarly journal
as well as a Romanian student newspaper.
I did, however, experience Dracula’s “hostility,” in Paris in 1992. I had been
invited to a private showing of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula in
a Parisian cinema. My wife and I had set forth under a gloriously sunny sky, but
suddenly, a few hundred meters from the cinema, we were caught in a violent
downpour which seemed to want to prevent us from going any further. Our
emotions were all the more heightened when, a bit later, we viewed the same
scenario on the big screen—a storm induced by Dracula against the vam-
pire hunters. A confusing situation which would have terrified my American
friends, if they had been there! But let’s return to our story.
In 1971, Florescu asked me to participate in writing a work on Dracula.
Unfortunately, the laws of communist Romania forbade such collaboration. I
would have had to submit my text—and the entirety of the work—for inspec-
tion by the Central Committee of the communist party, which had the right
to veto any publication abroad. It was a losing battle. The party bureaucrats
would never have approved a text dealing with vampires. So, I gave up the
project and entrusted my master’s thesis to my American friend. And in 1972,
Florescu and McNally published In Search of Dracula, which was subsequently
translated into numerous languages.2 I recognized in their book a number of
my ideas and was delighted at their world-wide circulation. In the meantime,
I had left Romania and begun my studies in Paris at the École nationale des
chartes. Dracula was far behind me. Or so I thought until my professor Henri-
Jean Martin proposed that I make him the subject of my doctoral thesis. This
I developed on the basis of the fifteenth century Dracula stories in German,
Latin, Slavonic, Russian, and Greek (1979).3 When this was accepted for pub-
lication by the École pratique des hautes etudes, I was asked to cut the work
by half. This then appeared in 1988 as L’histoire de Prince Dracula en Europe
Centrale et Orientale (XV siècle), which addressed only a limited aspect of the
subject.4

2  Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and
Vampire Legends (Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society Ltd., 1972).
3  “Le Thème de Dracula (XVe–XVIIIe siècle): Présentation, édition critique, traduction et com-
mentaire” (PhD diss., University of Paris 1, 3e cycle: Histoire et civilisations du monde byzan-
tin et post-byzantin, 1979).
4  L’histoire du prince Dracula en Europe centrale et orientale (XV e siècle): Présentation, édition
critique, traduction et commentaire. École pratique des hautes études, IV e section, Hautes
études médiévales et modernes, vol. 61. Geneva: Droz, and Paris: Champion, 1988.
Preface To The 2004 Edition xi

Subsequently I only published a few articles, drawn from chapters which

had been cut from my thesis. However, the more I thought about the subject,
the more dissatisified I was with the way I and others had dealt with it. I real-
ized I was, in truth, dealing with many Draculas—the Wallachian prince, the
tyrant of the German stories, the grand sovereign of the Russian accounts,
the “revolutionary” prince of the post-byzantine Greek historians, and finally the
vampire. I expressed these ideas in a conference held in 1987 at Boston College,
which this time facilitated Florescu and McNally’s publication Dracula: Prince
of Many Faces. His Life and Times.5
I was right in proposing this new direction, but professional preoccupations
deterred me from further work on the subject. In 1989, the Romanian revolu-
tion overthrew Ceaușescu. I thought that a recovered freedom of expression
would stimulate Romanian historians to broach this sensitive subject. Another
disappointment. My colleagues directed their research to the history of the
last hundred years which had been hidden or falsified by the communists. I
languished about in this frustration, with no resolve to write, until once again
inspiration came from the outside. I received a proposal that I bring the fruits
of my discoveries to the first true biography of Dracula. I accepted enthusiasti-
cally, ready to face this task equipped with some forty years of research, reflec-
tion and above all passion.
I set to work with a genuine jubilation which, I hope the reader will share.
Not, of course, that such feeling is appropriate for the subject. After all, this is
about a “murky affair,” as Balzac woud say. But I nevertheless feel in tune with
the subject, and have always felt an interest for the “unloved” of history, and for
the dark legend which surrounds Dracula.
My purpose is not to whitewash Dracula of the charges which have assured
him a place side-by-side with the great tyrants of history. The reader will dis-
cover here a portrait of this incredibly complex medieval prince, brought up
in an equally complex political and diplomatic world, which intends to be as
honest and accurate as possible.
Don’t expect here the standard clichés essentializing people as either good
or bad, pious or hostile to religion, courageous or craven, or reflective or impul-
sive. Vlad Dracula is an exemplary case reminding us that a biographer must
approach his work with humility, even if the result is incomplete and one-sided.

M. C.
June 2004

5  Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces. His Life and Times
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989).
Introduction to the 2004 Edition
Matei Cazacu

In the middle of June in the year 1463, the small city of Wiener Neustadt, fifty
kilometers south of Vienna, the favorite residence of Emperor Frederick III
Habsburg (1440–1493), had become the center of attention of all of Europe. A
large Hungarian delegation of three thousand knights, a veritable small army,
had arrived to conclude peace between the emperor and his toughest adver-
sary, the young king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus. War between the two
sovereigns had raged for five years. At issue was the possession of the crown
of Hungary. Upon the death of Ladislas the Posthumous (1457), Frederick III,
his guardian, was proclaimed king of Hungary by the nobles who wished to
strengthen their country’s ties with the Empire. This they did despite the fact
that another party of the Hungarian nobility had already elected as “national
king” a young man aged fifteen, namely Matthias, son of the previous gover-
nor János Hunyadi. At this time, Frederick III was likewise fighting against
the king of Bohemia, George Podiebrad, who was accused of being a Hussite
heretic. The emperor’s strategy was to keep the two border kingdoms, rich in
gold and silver ore, under his tutelage. The two kings, however, strongly sup-
ported by their nobles, were resisting this solution, which for a century had
effectively drained the resources of their countries to the imperial treasury.
To both these cases, Frederick III applied his famous motto, which he even
had engraved on his tableware: Austriae est imperare omni universo (AEIOU),
literally “It is for Austria to rule the entire world.” However, the young Matthias
had managed to resist the emperor. A man of noble birth, he derived on his
father’s side from the lesser Wallachian (Romanian) nobility of Transylvania,
the richest of the Hungarian provinces but also the one most exposed to for-
eign dangers. His father, János Hunyadi, was born Iancu (Ianko) of Hunedoara.
He had learned the profession of arms in the service of the duke of Milan,
Filippo Maria Visconti. Through his marriage to a noble Hungarian woman, he
moved up in the ranks of society, eventually becoming regent of the kingdom
and voievod1 (governor) of Transylvania during the minority of Ladislas the
Posthumous (1444–1456). A military leader without equal, János Hunyadi had
defended the country against the Ottomans, even launching attacks on their

1  In English this term is often rendered as “voivode” or “voivod.” Since the oldest form of the
word is actually “voievod,” I have adopted this spelling throughout the book. Likewise I
employ the term “voievodate” rather than “voivodate.”
Introduction To The 2004 Edition xiii

territory, variously victor and vanquished in an endless struggle lasting more

than fourteen years. Along with John of Capistrano, he had died heroically
defending Belgrade, Hungarian at that time, against the assaults of Mehmed II
the Conqueror (1456). He left two sons, the elder of whom, accused of con-
spiring against his sovereign, was decapitated by King Ladislas. Matthias only
survived owing to his tender age. After King Ladislas’s death—he was alleg-
edly poisoned with half of an apple cut with a knife covered with poison—
Matthias was proclaimed king by the supporters of his maternal uncle and his
allies. However, to enjoy full and complete royal legitimacy, he needed the holy
Crown of Hungary, held by the emperor. This crown was a powerful symbol
for the people of Hungary. Adorned with two diadems—the first purportedly
sent by Pope Sylvester II in the year 1000 to the first Christian king of Hungary,
the second a gift of the Byzantine emperor at some other date—this crown
symbolized the unity of the country and could not by replaced by any other.
When summoned to return it, the emperor counter-attacked by having him-
self crowned by the Hungarian higher aristocracy who were hostile to the
“Wallachian kinglet” (regulus Valachorum) and wished to be part of the nobil-
ity of the Empire. The war had escalated despite appeals for concord made by
Pope Pius II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini), who needed soldiers for the crusade
he launched against the Turks in 1459. Finally, after five years of fruitless fight-
ing, negotiations, and intrigues,2 the belligerent parties met to establish peace.
The accord provided that the emperor would receive 80,000 golden ducats for
redemption of the crown; that Matthias would show all possible deference
by considering Ladislas as a “father;” that the two sovereigns would remain
allies against their respective enemies; and, above all, that the crown would be
returned to the emperor if the king of Hungary died without a legitimate heir,
which in fact would be the case.3
Such was the situation when the Hungarians brought the ransom to Wiener
Neustadt in June 1463. Their frustration must have been great when the
emperor would not receive them in Vienna, but the capital was in open revolt
since April. His own brother, Albert of Habsburg, duke of Austria, gathered a
party of conspirators, cut the lines of communication, and launched pillag-
ing raids against residences in Wiener Neustadt and Ödenburg, heightening
the insecurity. Even the empress, Eleanor of Portugal, had been robbed by a

2  The king of Poland also presented himself as a candidate for the crown of Hungary, hoping to
renew the experience of Louis of Anjou, king of Hungary (1342–1382) and Poland (1370–1382),
and also that of his brother Vladislav between 1440 and 1444.
3  After a Polish interlude (1490–1526), the Hungarian crown would return to the Habsburgs,
who lost it only in 1918.
xiv Introduction To The 2004 Edition

master thief who had stolen her pure linen garments. Despite this precarious
situation, Frederick dragged on the negotiations by presenting new demands.
It required the vigorous intervention of the papal representatives, Rudolf
of Rüdesheim, bishop of Lavant, and Domenico de’ Domenichi di Lucca,
Archbishop of Torcello, for the treaty to be concluded (July 19 and 26, 1463),
payment to be sent, and the crown at last to be rendered to Matthias Corvinus.
The presence of the Hungarian army south of Vienna was the decisive event
of that year 1463. However, around the same time there was printed, probably
in Vienna, a pamphlet of four to six sheets. It was decorated with a portrait
placed on the front page, a novelty for this era, when the printing press was still
in its infancy. Gutenberg had only published his Bible, the first printed book,
in 1454.4 This pamphlet bore the German title Geschichte Dracol Waide [The
History of Voievod Dracula].5
Dracula was the epithet of the prince of Wallachia, Vlad III, vassal of
Matthias Corvinus, whom the king had arrested the previous year and impris-
oned in a castle on the Danube.
The origin of this epithet is still debated. For most scholars, it indicates the
membership of his father, Vlad Dracul, in the Order of the Dragon (Societas
draconistarum), founded by the emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg in 1408, at
which time he was not king of Hungary.6 Others posit that since the Latin term
draco is ancestral to the Romanian drac, meaning “devil,” Dracul could thus
mean “the devil,” and Dracula (in its popular form Drăculea) would signify “the

4  Since 1454, the Gutenberg press had only produced religious works and a calendar of the
Turks for 1455. Books printed up to 1500 are called incunabula, literally “in the cradle.”
5  See Appendix, pp. 310–316, for a full translation of the text.
6  On the Order of the Dragon, see most recently Mihailo Popović, “The Order of the Dragon
and the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević,” in Emperor Sigismund and the Orthodox World,
eds. Ekaterini Mitsiou et al., Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-
historische Klasse, Denkschriften, vol. 410 = Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, vol.
24 (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010), 103–106, with
bibliography on the Order in notes 1 and 2. Also Constantin Rezachevici, “From the Order of
the Dragon to Dracula,” Journal of Dracula Studies 1 (1999): 3–7, and Jonathan Boulton, The
Kights of the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe 1325–1520
(Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1987), 348–355, with excellent illustrations. Still
useful from the older literature are Henri Gourdon de Genouillac, Nouveau dictionnaire des
ordres de chevalerie: Créés chez les différents peuples depuis les premiers siècles jusqu’à nos
jours (Paris: E. Dentu, 1891), 107, and Elemér Mályusz, Kaiser Sigismund in Ungarn 1387–1437
(Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990), 75–77.
Introduction To The 2004 Edition xv

son of the devil.”7 A third interpretation, finally, is that the sense of the epithet
Dracul is along the lines of “devil of a man.” At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, William Wilkinson, former British Consul in Romania, expressed this
view as follows:

Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The Wallachians were,

at that time, as they are at present, used to give [sic, i.e. giving] this as a
surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by
courage, cruel action, or cunning.8

This is likewise the view of the Romanian linguist Vasile Bogrea, utilizing com-
parative data including the use of the name Dracula among the Greeks of the
Sporades Islands; several Romanian synonyms—such as Goldrac, who seems
to have inspired the author of the Japanese comic strip Goldorak!; the Turkish
term Șaitan; the Hungarian term Ördög; the German terms Teuffel, Manteuffel,
and Deibel; and so on.9 One could add to this list the name of the French brig-
and: Robert the Devil. Let us also note the resemblance of the word Dracul
with the Old Slavic drukol (pronounced dreukol), meaning “lance” or “alpen-
stock,” from which is derived kolu, meaning “stake” or “pole.” In Romanian the
term is “ţeapă,” whence derives our hero’s second epithet: Ţepeș, “the Impaler”
(kazıklı in Turkish).10
Dracula was, we are told by the anonymous author of the pamphlet, a tyrant
whose cruelty surpassed Herod, Nero, Diocletian and all the other tyrants and
torturers the world has ever known. The simple enumeration of the pains and
tortures Dracula inflicted not only on his subjects, but also on other people—
“pagans, Jews, Christians,” Turks, Germans, Italians, Gypsies—can hardly leave

7  See Grigore Nandriș, “A Philological Analysis of Dracula and Rumanian Place-names and
Masculine Personal Names in -a/-ea,” The Slavonic and East European Review 37, no. 89
(1959): 371–377.
8  William Wilkinson, Esq., Late British Consul Resident at Bukorest, An Account of the
Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, With Various Political Observations Relating to
Them (London: Longman, Hurst, Reese, Orme & Brown, 1820), 19, Note.
9  V. Bogrea, “Mărunţișuri istorico-filologice, XII: Incă o pomenire germană a lui Ţepeș
[Historico-philological varia, XII: Another German reference to Ţepeș],” in his Pagini
istorico-filologice [Historical-philological pages], ed. with introduction and indices by
Mircea Borcilă and Ion Mării (Cluj: Editura Dacia, 1971), 39–41. Reprinted from Anuarul
Institutului de Istorie Naţională 2 (1923): 359–362.
10  See also Gianfranco Giraudo, Drakula: Contributi alla storia delle idee politiche nell’Europa
Orientale alla svolta del XV secolo, Collana Ca’Foscari, Seminario di storia, Studi e ricerche,
vol. 4 (Venice: Libreria universitaria editrice, 1971), 42–48.
xvi Introduction To The 2004 Edition

the reader indifferent. And above all his favorite punishment, impalement.
Doubtless of Assyrian origin, it had been “perfected” by no longer utilizing
sharpened stakes, which rapidly kill the “patients,”11 but rather employing
rounded and greased stakes to prolong the torture. Designed to support an
entire body weight, the stake was inserted into the rectum and pushed forward
without damaging vital organs until it emerged through the mouth. Exposed
thus, the unfortunate victim was not immediately killed, but would die of thirst
after two or three days, his eyes eaten out by crows, but still in possession of all
his senses. Another contemporary author recounts that Dracula had planted
a forest of stakes, three kilometers long and one kilometer wide, right before
his palace windows so he might comfortably contemplate the convulsions of
his victims. The great Turkish lords and pashas had the benefit of higher than
average stakes, which were completely gilded! The author adds that the prince
often liked to take his meals at a table in the shade of these stakes, conversing
with his “guests” and toasting to their health.
Even in an extremely harsh and brutal world, which had known bloody
tyrants such as Ezzelino III da Romano in the thirteenth century (50,000 vic-
tims), Ferdinand (Ferrante) I of Naples and Sigismondo Malatesta in the fif-
teenth century, or Mehmed II (873,000 victims, according to a contemporary),
this pamphlet’s account of Dracula’s “novelties” are impressive indeed: impale-
ment of men, women, and children by the thousands (sometimes mothers
with their children in their arms), including 25,000 Turks (here the author’s fig-
ures are precise); a thieving Gypsy boiled in a cauldron, and forced to be eaten
by his clansmen; a pregnant mistress, disemboweled so the prince could see
where the fruit of her womb was, or had been; a feast in which Dracula served
his nobles crayfish nourished with the brains of their parents and friends; a
pyre for all the beggars and cripples of his country; mothers forced to eat their
roasted children; husbands forced to do the same with the breasts of their
wives.
The cynicism and sarcasm with which the tyrant treated his victims ren-
dered these atrocities all the more painful. When they cried out under torture,
Dracula would exclaim: “Harken to pleasant entertainments and delicious
delights!” And before the spectacle of impaled people writhing: “Amazing!
How adroitly they move, with great dexterity.”12 To the poor and the beggars

11  For a realistic depiction, see Jerzy Hoffman’s film Pan Wołodyjowski [Colonel Wołodyjowski].
12  Michael Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, p. 323. For the
original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald, ll. 184–
185, p. 204. and ll. 357–358, p. 209. For the original German with facing French translation,
see ed. and trans. Cazacu., ll. 184–185, pp. 114 [German], 115 [French], and ll. 357–358, pp.
122 [German], 123 [French].
Introduction To The 2004 Edition xvii

whom he had burned in two large buildings, he said he wished to help them to
get to paradise more quickly so they would not have to suffer any longer on the
earth. Finally, to those who were asking him why he was persecuting people in
this way, he responded, quoting Saint Peter, that rulers are appointed by God to
punish those who are wrongdoers and to reward those who do good.13
This story of Dracula’s cruelties was doubtless written in the court of Matthias
Corvinus who, alerted by the cries of victims and their families, seized his vas-
sal and put him in irons. The first such account, most likely written in Latin,
was sent to the pope, Venice, and other princes. It is still preserved, translated
into German, in four independent manuscript copies, and had been incorpo-
rated into several contemporary works. This same year 1463, the German min-
strel Michael Beheim collected other stories from Vienna and Wiener Neustadt
and composed a poem of 1,070 lines about the misdeeds of the Wallachian
prince. It begins like this:

The worst despot and / tyrant that I know / on all this earth / under the
wide vault of heaven, / since the world began; no-one was ever so despi-
cable. / I want to tell you about him.14

The 1463 brochure, produced most likely in Vienna by an itinerant printer

(possibly Ulrich Han), was copied, adapted, and then reprinted between 1488
and 1568 in the principal cities of Germany, from Leipzig and Hamburg to
Strasbourg and Nuremberg. All copies include a portrait of Dracula, or a scene
from his life (i.e., dining amidst the impaled, cf. figs. 11 and 12). At the other end
of Europe, an independent Russian version had circulated at the end of 1486.15
To our knowledge this was never printed, but there were at least twenty-two
manuscript copies. Here Dracula is presented as a stern but just sovereign,
defending his country against the Turks, a wise and cultivated prince. In some
way this was a model for Ivan the Terrible, who read this account with profit,
since he imitated some of the tortures devised by the Romanian prince.

13  “For the sake of the Lord, accept the authority of every social institution: the emperor, as
the supreme authority, and the governors as commissioned by him to punish criminals
and praise good citizenship.” 1 Peter 2:13–15 (The Jerusalem Bible, gen. ed. Jones, 402–403).
14  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, p. 317. For the original
German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald, ll. 1–7, p. 199. For
the original German with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu., ll. 1–7,
pp. 106 [German], 107 [French].
15  A full English translation is printed below, in the Appendix, pp. 357–363. For the original
Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu. For another English
version, see trans. McNally.
xviii Introduction To The 2004 Edition

The contemporary Greek and Turkish historians in turn recorded various

episodes and accounts, adding new material which was circulating orally. One
Greek historian credited Dracula with a veritable revolution in his country, a
notion which only partially corresponds to the actual sense of the term. But
still, let us keep this image of Dracula as a “revolutionary prince.” The echoes
of his deeds reached all the way to France, to Jean Bodin, who unfortunately
summarily dismissed them in his République (1580): “I leave aside these strange
cruelties of Dracula, duke of Transylvania.”16
Paradoxically, in his country of origin, Wallachia, today part of southern
Romania, the memory of Dracula’s deeds and actions was lost over the course
of several centuries. Even the official chronicle of Wallachia, written in the six-
teenth century and reworked in the next, hardly mentions the bloody prince.
All that survive are stories (unknown in the Latin, German, and Russian ver-
sions) connected with his castle in the southern Carpathians (castle Poienari).
The peasants of seven surrounding villages benefitted from important finan-
cial privileges in exchange for the care and maintenance of this eagle’s nest
situated on the Transylvanian border. The prince’s memory is perpetuated
there even to our days, thanks to the fortress which strikes the imagination
and keeps alive the memory of its founder.
The rediscovery of Dracula didn’t occur until the nineteenth century, when
German, Russian, and Hungarian historians published the incunabula and the
manuscript accounts. When modern Romanian scholars in turn discovered
these texts, they found themselves faced with a dilemma. This prince, cruel
beyond all measure, had nonetheless shown exceptional courage in confront-
ing the army of Mehmed II the Conqueror. Heroes on this scale were not legion
in Romania’s past. What to do? How to reconcile the two faces of this charac-
ter? Finally, after much hesitation, Dracula—or rather Vlad the Impaler—was
inscribed on the list of national heroes who had defended the independence of
Romania, which became a nation state in 1918 with Wallachia and Moldavia’s
union with Transylvania. Nicolae Ceaușescu even celebrated the five hundredth
anniversary of Dracula’s death in 1976, and a goodly number of publications
presented him as a great reformer, peerless military commander, and a harsh
but just prince. The atrocities committed by this “hero” were simply brushed
off by Ceaușescu as falsehoods or exaggerations by enemies of the Romanian
people. However, a new worry arrived, adding to those already poisoning the
life of the Romanian “Carpathian of Thought.” In 1972, two American historians,
Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally had published in Connecticut their

16  “Je laisse les cruautés estranges de Dracula duc de Transylvanie …” See Cazacu, L’histoire
du prince Dracula, 53.
Introduction To The 2004 Edition xix

In Search of Dracula,17 a work which established a link between the historic

Romanian character (who was, moreover, completely unknown in the west)
and the father of all modern vampires. Immortalized, if you will, by the Irish
writer Bram Stoker in 1897, the vampire Dracula, count of the Carpathians,
had for quite some time conquered the British Empire and indeed the entire
world—invading library shelves, theater stages, and Hollywood screens.
Brought to life on the screen by Bela Lugosi (a native of Transylvania), Lon
Chaney Jr., Christopher Lee, and more recently Gary Oldman in Francis Ford
Coppola’s film, the vampire was decidedly the shadow—even if vampires don’t
have them!—of Vlad the Impaler. This is why Ceaușescu, who as a son of peas-
ants must have known Romanian popular beliefs regarding vampires very well,
outlawed discussion on this subject. The pretext was that this was part of the
sad heritage of centuries of ignorance and the misery of the people, subjected
to the exploitation of the Turks and the boyars. Despite the persistence of such
beliefs in certain remote areas, the Romanian leader decreed that vampirism
was unknown in the country, and moreover that Vlad the Impaler never drank
the blood of his fellow men. Even if he made blood flow like rivers, and even if,
as one contemporary says, he took delight plunging his hands into it, especially
that of his great enemies.
Truth be told, however, these beliefs have existed and still exist in Romania,
as Ioanna Andreesco has shown in her book Où sont passés les vampires?,18
just as they’ve existed in the Balkans, the Greek islands, Hungary, Slovakia,
Bohemia, Moravia, Ukraine, and Russia. It was from this fertile ground that
Bram Stoker derived his figure of the vampire. And he contrived, for the first
time, an oriental aristocrat bearing a historic name—a reincarnation, he
affirms, of a valiant prince of the fifteenth century—, who did not really need
this transformation to inspire fear. Vampirism has interested the west since the
eighteenth century, because it intersects with a larger debate on the external
signs of death, on apparent death, on incompleted death, and on questions
relating to tombs outside of cities. Also pertinent is the need for a death cer-
tificate, which was campaigned for by French scholars such as the anatomist
Jacques-Bénigne Winslow (1669–1760) and his disciple Jacques-Jean Bruhier
d’Ablaincourt (1685–1756), whose works have been reconstructed with talent
and erudition by Claudio Milanesi.19

17  McNally and Florescu, In Search of Dracula (1972).

18  Ioanna Andreesco, Où sont passés les vampires? (Paris: Payot & Rivages, 1997).
19  Claudio Milanesi, Mort apparente, mort imparfaite: Médecine et mentalités au XVIII e
siècle, Bibliothèque scientifique (Paris: Payot, 1991).
xx Introduction To The 2004 Edition

The present work aims to paint a picture of the little known historical fig-
ure Vlad III, known as “the Impaler.” To be sure, this is not to forget the tyrant
Dracula as he is presented in the Latin, German, Russian, and Balkan accounts,
all of which exploited and manipulated his image according to political and
ideological interests which we must endeavor to detect. We shall likewise
address Dracula the vampire, both as a literary character and hero of cinema,
from Murnau’s Nosferatu the Vampire up to the present. In summary, the hero
and his times, the tyrant and his public, and the vampire and the world of
shadows.
That Dracula continues to excite such keen interest in our own times proves
that we’re dealing with a genuine foundation myth in the human psyche. Its
elements include life after death, fascination with blood as a source of life,
obsession with evil and violence, the “beyond” intruding into our lives, and
“the undead” which has haunted humans since they built the first tombs and
created complicated ceremonies, intended to ensure that the spirit of the
deceased will travel to the other side unhindered, and not return.
Introduction to the English Translation
Stephen W. Reinert

The genesis of any book has its particular history, and Matei Cazacu has elo-
quently memorialized the origins of his Dracula in his preface to the 2004 edi-
tion. The coming to life of this edited English translation likewise has its tale,
dating back to the spring of 2014.
In that semester, at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, I
launched my first semester length lecture course entitled “Dracula: Facts
and Fictions,” but was uncomfortable with the absence of readily available,
up-to-date, quality biographical material on Vlad III Dracula—in the English
language—to assign as basic reading. My considered opinion, over the years,
has been that Cazacu’s Dracula is not only the most accomplished scholarly
work in the field, but a masterpiece of historical writing on account of the
author’s remarkable linguistic acumen, consummate facility with the sources,
and sophisticated historical imagination and interpretive skill.1 But since
it was published in French, and heretofore had never been translated into
English, it was impossible to adopt for classroom purposes. I expressed this
conviction to my students in an introductory lecture on Dracula historiography,
along with my disappointment that I could not assign Cazacu’s Dracula, in an
English version, as their basic textbook. At the end of the hour, one of my stu-
dents approached me, introducing herself as a joint French-History major and
wondering if she might undertake the translation of a few chapters of Cazacu’s
Dracula for an extra-credit project. I was delighted by the proposal, and even
more stunned when, by the end of the semester, this amazing young scholar—
Nicole Mordarski—had produced an impressive opening translation of much
of Cazacu’s narrative, from preface through conclusion. We agreed, then, that
over the summer of 2014 I would assess the possibility of a collaboration, with
the goal of publishing the first English translation of Cazacu’s biography.
Although preoccupied with final touches on a collection of my own schol-
arly papers,2 I carried out my agreement and, week by week, worked together

1  For erudite appreciations of Cazacu’s lifetime’s research on Dracula and kindred subjects, see
Emanuel Constantin Antoche’s “Matei Cazacu à la recherche de Dracula,” Turcica 37 (2005):
355–364, and “Matei Cazacu, l’un des derniers historiens européens de l’exil,” in Cazacu, Au
carrefour des Empires et des mers, 11–15.
2  Stephen Reinert, Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Studies, Variorum Collected Studies
Series: CS 902 (Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2014).
xxii Introduction To The English Translation

with Nicole on various revisions, with an eye to rendering Cazacu’s rather

complicated and elegant style into something approximating standard Anglo-
American prose. I increasingly realized, however, that transforming Cazacu’s
French Dracula into an English version could not simply be a project of
straightforward translation, as was the case with eight of the nine translations
to date.3 Accepting that our goal was to produce a version at a scholarly stan-
dard equivalent to the original publication, a variety of editorial interventions
would be needed, in addition to basic translation of Cazacu’s narrative. These
fall into three key categories:

1. Ensuring Accurate Translation of Primary Source Quotations and Texts. What

makes Cazacu’s biography of Vlad III Dracula so remarkably rich and engag-
ing is the range of primary sources which he utilized and translated, from all
pertinent languages. In the 2004 original, these translations were of course into
French, since the targeted readership was Francophone. But subsequent trans-
lators “rotely” rendering Cazacu’s French translations of the original sources
into other languages have frequently made errors, ranging from minor to egre-
gious, because they have not seen it as necessary to revisit the originals and
check for accuracy on a systematic basis. My intention, in overseeing the first
English translation of Cazacu’s Dracula, has been to ensure that the transla-
tion of all parts of the work—the author’s own narrative of the component
themes, and the primary sources he quotes or incorporates—are as accurate
as possible. In the case of source quotations from English texts (e.g., Bram
Stoker, William Wilkinson, Emily Gerard, etc.), the procedure is simple and
straightforward: Replace the French translation with the English original. With
other quotations—variously from Latin, Byzantine Greek, Ottoman Turkish,
early Italian and French, Middle High German, Old Slavic and Russian—I have
either checked our translations of Cazacu’s French translations against the
originals, making modifications as necessary, or in several cases have replaced
Cazacu’s rendering with recently published, quality scholarly translations
into English. In particular, for De Wavrin, Doukas, Chalkokondyles, Michael
Beheim’s Song Poem on Dracula, and Pius II’s Commentaries, we have incorpo-
rated quotations from the reliable English translations of Colin Imber, Harry

3  The “straightforward,” unedited translations are those in Greek, Italian, Latvian, Polish,
Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Turkish. The Romanian translation reveals, throughout,
careful editorial work and a frequent rechecking of Cazacu’s citations with the original works
(Dracula, translated from the French by Dana-Ligia Ilin, Bucharest: Humanitas, 2008).
Introduction To The English Translation xxiii

Magoulias, Anthony Kaldellis, Willam C. McDonald, and Florence A. Gragg.4 I

have, of course, retained and translated whatever notes Cazacu appended to
his original French versions.
2. Updating Primary Source References. The most significant development
in Dracula studies since 2004 has been the launch of a comprehensive source
collection entitled Corpus Draculianum: Dokumente und Chroniken zum wala-
chischen Fürsten Vlad dem Pfähler 1448–1650, edited by Thomas M. Bohn and
colleagues. Projected to be three volumes, the third of these appeared in 2013,
dealing with Überlieferung aus dem Osmanischen Reich: Postbyzantinische
und osmanische Autoren, and edited by Adrian Gheorghe and Albert Weber.
Citations to this volume have been incorporated throughout the notes.
Unfortunately volumes one and two had not yet been published when our
work went to press, but we envision adding references from the completed
Corpus Draculianum in a subsequent update.
3. Updating Secondary Literature. Since the original publication date of
2004, there has been, as with any thriving research field, a steady outpouring of
new publications. As the translation proceeded, I attempted to incorporate the
most important new English publications at relevant points throughout the
footnotes, bearing in mind that our targeted readership is Anglophone. When
the manuscript was finished, Cazacu reviewed every chapter and the annex,
and provided extensive additional citations, covering in particular recent sig-
nificant work in French and Romanian scholarship.
4. Organizing a Systematic Bibliography. The bibliography in the original
French version was limited, and did not delineate all the primary and second-
ary sources Cazacu used throughout the work. Our bibliography addresses this
deficiency, and citations are formatted according to The Chicago Manual of
Style,5 with which most Anglo-American readers will be familiar.

The foregoing, then, are the major “editorial interventions” applied in the pro-
duction of this English translation, which I undertook as my primary role in the
project. In addition, we secured the collaboration of two additional translators,
Alice Brinton and Dr. Catherine Healey, both of whom have native fluency in
French as well as English, and a long history of French-to-English translation
experience, in particular with political and historical texts. Alice and Cathie

4  Owing to length of passages quoted, permissions were sought and received from Professors
Imber and McDonald, and Harvard University Press for Professor Kaldellis’ translation. For
these we express our gratitude.
5  University of Chicago Press, The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (Chicago, Illinois:
University of Chicago Press, 2010).
xxiv Introduction To The English Translation

not only revised and polished some of the most difficult of Cazacu’s passages,
but reviewed the entire manuscript for accuracy and style.
An additional change, in this English version, is that I have opted not to
include a translation of Marie Nizet’s 1879 Le Capitaine Vampire: Nouvelle
Roumaine. In the original 2004 publication, Cazacu edited and republished
the latter as the final section of his book. But since Cazacu provides such an
extensive précis of the novel in Chapter Eight, appending a full English transla-
tion in this version is not essential for comprehending the author’s arguments,
particularly vis-à-vis Stoker’s possible use of Nizet in constructing the plot of
his Dracula. Moreover, in 2007, a good English translation of Nizet’s work was
published by Brian Stableford, entitled Captain Vampire (Encino, California:
Black Coat Press). Interested readers may consult this independently, and it is
currently readily available both in paperback and ebook format.
It remains to acknowledge individuals and institutions for assistance ren-
dered in the course of this endeavor. First and foremost, the author, Matei
Cazacu, quickly responded to all my inquiries with his characteristic pro-
found learning, and the patience of Job. The Interlibrary Loan and Article
Delivery Services at Rutgers’ Alexander Library, New Brunswick, were unfail-
ingly efficient, helpful, and courteous. Through their assistance, I was able to
review nearly every article and book cited in the 2004 edition, and thus ensure
(so I hope) the bibliographic accuracy of citations in our edited transla-
tion. Dr. James Niessen (World History Librarian, Alexander Library) kindly
answered a variety of bibliographic questions and resolved my uncertainties
in Romanian and Hungarian. Michael Siegel (Staff Cartographer, Geography
Department, Rutgers University) designed the map and genealogies for this
edition. Other Rutgers colleagues who likewise provided assistance include
Professors Rebecca Davis, Peter Golden, and Barry V. Qualls, whose proofread-
ing skills are unrivaled. Beyond Rutgers, Professor Sarah Bassett (Dept. of Art
History, Indiana University) clarified a number of art historical matters, as did
Dr. Alice Isabella Sullivan (History of Art, University of Michigan), whose help
at numerous points was extraordinarily collegial and invaluable. Mrs. Anette
Phillips Nicolls, and my fellow UCLA graduate student Dr. Carol Gilmor, helped
me comprehend the behavior of horses in pitched battle. Professor William C.
McDonald (Dept. of Germanic Languages & Literatures, University of Virginia)
elucidated some tricky passages in Beheim and the German pamphlets. Turning
overseas, staff from the Biblioteca Centrală Universitară “Lucian Blaga” Cluj-
Napoca Help Desk, and its counterpart at Sibiu, have likewise been wonder-
ful in elaborating references, and providing PDFs in particular of nineteenth
century newspaper articles that Cazacu cited. Dr. Mircea-Cristian Ghenghea
(History Dept., Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iași) similarly lent his exper-
Introduction To The English Translation xxv

tise in resolving problems in this area, and kindly conveyed PDFs of difficult
to find articles. Staff at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België—Bibliothèque
royale de Belgique were very helpful in researching queries on the Nizets,
Marie and Henri. The Romanian Academy Library generously provided us with
photos of Dracula’s “Halley’s Comet” coin from its numismatics special collec-
tion. The good nuns of the Mănăstirea Suceviţa graciously provided fresh pho-
tos of two manuscript paintings from a tetraevangelion in their library. And
finally, Robin MacCaw, great-grandson of Bram Stoker himself, kindly allowed
us to include a photo of the first and most important page of Stoker’s typewrit-
ten notes from William Willkinson’s Account of the Principalities of Wallachia
and Moldavia, whence he discovered the name “Dracula.” To all the aforemen-
tioned, our most sincere thanks.
And last, but by no means least, we express our gratitude to the superb
Brill editors with whom it was our good fortune and pleasure to work: Kate
Hammond (Acquisitions Editor, Medieval Studies & Military History), Marcella
Mulder (Assistant Editor), and Judy Pereira (Production Editor).
List of Abbreviations

Cazacu, Au carrefour Cazacu, Matei. Au carrefour des Empires et des mers: Études
 des Empires et d’histoire médiévale et moderne. Florilegium magistrorum
 des mers historiae archaeologiaeque Antiquitatis et Medii Aevi, eds.
Victor Spinei and Ionel Cândea, vol. 18. Bucharest and Brăila:
Editura Academiei Române and Muzeul Brăilei “Carol I”
Editura Istros, 2015.
Cazacu, Dracula Cazacu, Matei. Dracula, suivi du Capitaine Vampire, une
nouvelle roumaine par Marie Nizet (1879). Paris: Tallandier
Éditions, 2004.
Cazacu, L’histoire du Cazacu, Matei. L’histoire du prince Dracula en Europe
 prince Dracula centrale et orientale (XV e siècle): Présentation, édition critique,
traduction et commentaire. 2nd ed. Geneva: Librairie Droz,
1996.
Corpus Draculianum, Gheorghe, Adrian and Weber, Albert, eds. Die Überlieferung
 vol. 3 aus dem Osmanischen Reich: Post­byzantinische und osmani­
sche Autoren. Vol. 3 of Corpus Draculianum: Dokumente und
Chroniken zum walachischen Fürsten Vlad dem Pfähler 1448–
1650, eds. Thomas M. Bohn et al. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
Verlag, 2013.
Documente, vol. 2, Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu de, and Densușianu, Nicolae, eds.
 pt. 1 Documente privitoare la istoria românilor [Documents con-
cerning the history of the Romanians]. Vol. 2, part 1, 1346–
1450. Bucharest: [Stabilimentul Grafic Socecu & Teclu], 1890.
Documente, vol. 2, Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu de, and Densușianu, Nicolae, eds.
 pt. 2 Documente privitoare la istoria românilor [Documents con-
cerning the history of the Romanians]. Vol. 2, part 2, 1451–1510.
Bucharest: [Stabilimentul Grafic Socecu & Teclu], 1891.
Documente, vol. 4, Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu de, ed. Documente privitoare la istoria
 pt. 2 românilor [Documents concerning the history of the
Romanians]. Vol. 4, part 2, 1600–1650. Bucharest: [Stabili­
mentul Grafic Socecu & Teclu], 1884.
Documente, vol. 15, Hurmuzaki, Eudoxiu de, and Iorga, Nicolae, eds. Documente
 pt. 1 privitoare la istoria românilor [Documents concerning the
history of the Romanians]. Vol. 15, part 1, 1358–1600: Acte
și scrisori din archivele oraselor Ardeleue (Bistriţa, Brașov,
Sibiu) [1358–1600: Documents and letters from archives of
Transylvanian cities (Bistriţa, Brașov, Sibiu)]. Bucharest:
[Stabilimentul Grafic Socecu & Teclu], 1911.
List Of Abbreviations xxvii

DRH B, vol. 1 Documenta Romaniae historica, eds. Andrei Oţetea et al.,

series B, Ţara Românească [Wallachia], vol. 1, 1247–1500, eds.
P. P. Panaitscu and Damaschin Mios. Bucharest: Editura
Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1965.
DRH B, vol. 25 Documenta Romaniae historica, eds. Ștefan Pascu et al.,
series B, Ţara Românească [Wallachia], vol. 25, 1635–1636,
eds. Damaschin Mioc et al. Bucharest: Editura Academiei
Republicii Socialiste România, 1985.
DRH D, vol. 1 Documenta Romaniae historica, eds. Mihai Berza et al.,
series D, Relaţii între Ţările Române [Relations between the
Romanian countries], vol. 1, 1222–1456, eds. Ștefan Pascu
et al. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste
România, 1977.
GDW 1463 Geschichte Dracole Waide [The History of Voivode Dracula].
GDW 1488 = Die Geschicht Dracole Waide [The History of Voivode
Dracula].
MHH AE, vol. 4 [A] Nagy, Iván and Nyáry, Albert, eds. Mátyás király korábol
[1466–1480] [The Age of Matthias Corvinus (1466–1480)].
Vol. 4 [A] of Monumenta Hungariae historica. Series IV
Acta extera. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia
Könyvkiadó-Hivatalában, 1875.
MHH AE, vol. 4 [B] Nagy, Iván and Nyáry, Albert, eds. Mátyás király korábol
[1466–1480] [The Age of Matthias Corvinus (1466–1480)].
Vol. 4 [B] of Monumenta Hungariae historica. Series IV
Acta extera. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia
Könyvkiadó-Hivatalában, 1877.
McNally and Florescu, McNally, Raymond T. and Florescu, Radu. In Search of
 In Search of Dracula Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires. New updated
  (1994) and revised edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1994.
Treptow, Vlad III Treptow, Kurt W. Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the
 Dracula Historical Dracula. Iași: The Center for Romanian Studies,
2000.
List of Illustrations, Genealogies, and Map

Illustrations

1 Fresco of Vlad II Dracul and his wife, in Dracula’s House, Sighișoara,

Romania 375
2 Dracula’s House, Sighișoara, Romania 375
3 Silver ban of Vlad II Dracul with dragon on the reverse 376
4 Golden bull of Emperor Sigismund I, August 10, 1433 376
5 Portrait of Vlad Dracula, second half of sixteenth century 377
6 Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, with cryptoportrait of Vlad Dracula,
ca. 1470–1480 378
7 First page of Cod. Sang. 806, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, narrating
Die Geschichte Dracole Waide 379
8 Frontispiece colored woodcut portrait of Vlad Dracula from
Peter Wagner’s 1488 pamphlet Die Geschicht Dracole Waide 380
9 Frontispiece uncolored woodcut portrait from Bartholomaeus
Ghothan’s 1488–1493 pamphlet Die Geschicht Dracole Waide 380
10 First two text pages of Bartholomaeus Ghothan’s 1488–1493 pamphlet
Die Geschicht Dracole Waide 381
11 Frontispiece woodcut depiction of Vlad Dracula dining amidst
impaled victims, in Matthias Hupfuff’s 1500 pamphlet Die Geschicht
Dracole Waide 382
12 Modern colorized version of the Hupfuff woodcut 382
13–14 Silver ban of Vlad Dracula, with depiction of Halley’s Comet on
reverse 383
15 Postcard of Dracula’s Palace at Târgoviște, during 1906 Bucharest
Jubilee Exhibition 384
16 Bucharest, remains of the Old Princely (Voievodal) Court 384
17–18 Castle Poienari, built by Dracula in the southern Carpathians 385
19 Portrait busts in relief of Matthias Corvinus and his wife Beatrice 386
20 Mehmed II “the Conqueror,” portrait by Nakkaș Sinan Bey 386
21 Votive portrait of Basarab III Laiotă, Dracula’s assassin 387
22 Snagov Monastery Church, wherein Dracula most likely was
buried 387
23 Suceviţa Monastery Manuscript Portrait of Alexander II Mircea, son
of Mircea III Dracula, and great-grandson of Dracula (MS 23,
fol. 303 vo) 388
List Of Illustrations, Genealogies, And Map xxix

24 Suceviţa Monastery Manuscript Portrait of Mihnea II the Turk, son

of Alexander II Mircea, and great-great grandson of Dracula (MS 23, fol.
238 vo) 388
25 Photo of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, with Stoker’s autograph. Dated
1906, the year of the Bucharest Jubilee Exhibition 389
26 Stoker’s typewritten notes, with handwritten pen annotations, from Wil-
liam Wilkinson’s Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and
Moldavia (1820) 389
27 Max Schreck as Count Orlok, in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s
Nosferatu (1922) 390

Genealogies

1 The House of Basarab—The Dăneștii Branch xxxi

2 The House of Basarab—The Drăculeștii Branch xxxii
3 The House of Basarab—Vlad Dracula’s Descendants in
Transylvania xxiii

Map

Wallachia and its neighbors in the 14th and 15th centuries xxx

 Map and Genealogies

Wallachia and its neighbors in the 14th and 15th centuries.

 THE HOUSE OF BASARAB – THE DĂNEŞTII BRANCH
Map And Genealogies xxxi

Basarab i
1320–1352

Nicholas Alexander
1352–1364
m. 1 Chiajna
m. 2 Clara Dobokai

Vladislav i Radu i
1363–1377 a. 1364–1377
1377–1383
m. Anna Calinchia

Dan i Mircea i the Old

1383–1385 [see Drǎculeştii Branch]

Dan ii
1420–1431
with interruptions

Basarab ii Dan
1442–1444 d. 1440

Basarab iv Ţepeluş Basarab iii Laiotă Vladislav ii Dan iii

(The Little Impaler) 1473–1474 1447–1456 Pretender killed by
1477–1482 1475–1476 Dracula (1460)
m. Maria 1477

Boldface: ruler in Wallachia + dates

a. + dates: associate ruler in Wallachia
m.: married
The House of Basarab—The Dăneștii Branch.
xxxii THE HOUSE OF BASARAB – THE DRĂCULEŞTIIMap And Genealogies
BRANCH

Radu i

Dan i Mircea i The Old

[see Dăneştii Branch] a. 1383–1385
1386–1418
m. Maria Tolmay, Hungarian noblewoman

Michael i Alexander Aldea Vlad Dracul

a. 1391–1418 1431–1436 1436–1442, 1444–1447
1418–1420 m. Marina of Moldavia m. 1 Hungarian noblewoman, name unknown
m. 2 Marina of Moldavia

Mircea Vlad Dracula Radu the Handsome Alexandra

[1428/9–1447] (The Impaler) 1462–1475
1448, 1456–1462, 1476 m. Marina Despina
c. consort, name unknown
m. 1 dtr. of János Hunyadi, name unknown
m. 2 Justina Szilágyi [Pongrácz]

Vlad Mircea (?) Mihnea Maria Volchiţa Boyars

claimant to 1482/3 at Buda 1508–1509 m. Stephen the Great of Săteni
Wallachian throne m. 1 Smaranda
(1495) m. 2 Voica

Ludovicus Drakula Miloş Mircea Bogdan iii

De Sinteşhi d. 1519 a. 1509–1510 Voievod of Moldavia (1504–1517)
m. Maria Despina

Alexander Mircea Peter The Lame Maria Five Milos

1568–1577 Voievod of Moldavia: m. Michael daughters d. 1577
m. Catherine Salvaresso 1574–1579, 1582–1591 Cantacuzino
m. 1 Maria Amirali Şeytanoglu
m. 2 Irina

Mihnea ii Stephen Cantacuzino family of Romania,

1577–1583, 1585–1591 (1584–1602) Russia, Crimea, etc.
m. 1 Neaga de Hotărani
m. 2 Vişa

Radu Mihnea
Wallachia 1601–1602, 1611–1616
Modavia 1616–1619, 1623–1626
m. Arghira Minetti

Alexander The Child Boldface: ruler in Wallachia + dates

(Coconul) a. + dates: associate ruler in Wallachia
Wallachia 1623–1627 c: consort
Modavia 1629–1630 m.: married
The House of Basarab—The Drăculeștii Branch.
 THE HOUSE OF BASARAB
Map And Genealogies
VLAD DRACULA’S DESCENDANTS IN TRANSYLVANIA xxxiii

Vlad iii Dracula = Justina Szilágyi [Pongrácz]

(The Impaler) cousin of Matthias Corvinus
1448, 1456–1462, 1476
Vlad

Ludovicus Drakula De Sinteşti

Vlad Drakulya de Sinteşti John Drakulya De Sinteşti

m. Anna Gyulay

John Drakulya George Drakulya

Band Nobleman

Anne
m. Stephen Géczy-Papp
notary at Sucutard

George Géczy
commander of the fusiliers
at Kanizsa Catle, Hungary

Andrew Peter Stephen Géczy-Papp

d. 1614 d. 1612 at Istanbul, alias Dracula,
pretender to throne in kapukehaia (representative Band nobleman, priest,
Transylvania (1612) to the Porte) notary at Sucutard
m. Euphosine Soos de Poltar m. Anna Dracula de Band

d.: date of death Paul Géczy alias Papp

m.: married noble of Sucutard
The House of Basarab—Vlad Dracula’s Descendants in Transylvania.
 CHAPTER 1

Exile As a Way of Life

“A Fortress on the Water”

Vlad Dracula1 was born sometime between 1429–1430 and 1436, most like-
ly in Schässburg, today Sighișoara, a German city in the center of Romania,
in the province of Transylvania. First recorded in 1280 as Castrum Sex, the
form Schässburg appears a few years later, in 1298. Nicknamed “the Saxon
Nuremberg,” Sighișoara achieved a certain fame in 2003 when the minister of
Romanian Tourism announced that a “Dracula Land” theme park would be
built nearby. After numerous protests, this project was finally abandoned. The
city has preserved its ancient walls, watch towers, narrow streets, and fifteenth
and sixteenth century houses. In 1938, the Enciclopedia României described the
city as follows:

Imagine that from the depths of the sea a coral island, on which light
gently rains, appears before your eyes. Behold Sighișoara. Contemplating
it, you truly have the illusion of a fortress on the water. Its gray walls,
over which a crown of red ivies tumbles down; the winding streets; the
slender flowering towers at dawn, their thresholds glistening with
the colors of the night’s cool dew; the belts of green walkways surround-
ing the cemetery and the old town center; […] the moody shadows … It
all resembles a game of sea crystals, the gentle plash of pensive waters.
The somber, rough Saxon architecture […] is here sublime, with its sharp-
ly angular towers and multi-colored houses. Nature in Transylvania gen-
erously extends herself everywhere, with rugged forests enveloping the
dream-like citadel with warm intimacy, as if to re-establish harmonious
union between creation and the work of man. The city is caressed by the
sweet banks of the Târnava River, with its gently moving, languid waters.
The overall feeling is of abundance, and of full surrender to the rhythms
of nature. Still in all, Sighișoara remains serene and unruffled. Stranger
to the rich landscape of the surrounding forests, Sighișoara leads its as-
cetic existence in the milieu of a complex Gothic style, with soaring lines

1  Before 1475, Dracula signed his name simply as “Vlad.” From 1475, however, he uses the form
Ladislaus Dragwlya (or Dragkwlya, Drakulya), which likewise appears on his seal. Cf. Bogdan,
Documente privitoare la relaţiile, nos. CLXVI–CLXVII, pp. 323–324.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_002

2 CHAPTER 1

in silent longing for the absolute. And yet, viewed from the south in the
morning, she appears to shimmer in the mist caressed air, ready to sail
forth, smiling like a city by the sea.2

The house where Dracula was presumably born, a massive but inelegant build-
ing, still exists in the old (or upper) city (figs. 1 and 2). An inscription placed
in 1976 attests that this, indeed, is where the Impaler was born.3 Heretofore,
however, the house was noted only for having functioned as a mint, between
1433 and 1436. Scholars agree that Vlad the Impaler was probably born during
his father’s exile in Transylvania. We also know that between 1431 and 1436 Vlad
Dracul had, as a source of revenue, minting of coins in Sighișoara. It is highly
probable, therefore, that Vlad was born in this house. Even so, the 1976 inscrip-
tion is hardly justified in eliminating all doubt.
In reality, we don’t know where Vlad’s father lived before February of
1431. Possibly in Constantinople, then still Byzantine, or somewhere else in
Transylvania? If Vlad was born before 1431, his place of birth remains unknown.
But from 1431 to the autumn of 1436, there is, of course, the house in Sighișoara.
From the autumn of 1436, his father occupied the throne of Wallachia, where
Vlad may have been born if he had come into the world at the end of this year.
We do, however, know that his older brother, Mircea, their father’s first born,
was aged thirteen or fourteen in 1443. A Burgundian knight, Jehan de Wavrin,
confirms this in his account of Vlad Dracul’s captivity among the Turks in 1442:

At this time, the Lord of Wallachia had only a single son, aged between
thirteen and fourteen, who was not capable of governing such a kingdom,
and especially not in time of war.4

Since Mircea was born in 1428–1429, we may plausibly deduce that his broth-
er Vlad could not have been born before 1429–1430. In addition, once he was
on the throne of Wallachia, Vlad Dracul mentions his two “first born” sons
in a charter dated August 10, 1437. All in all, the evidence strongly supports
Sighișoara as Vlad’s birthplace.

2  Enciclopedia României [Encyclopedia of Romania], eds. Dimitrie Gusti et al., vol. 2 Ţara
Românească [Wallachia] (Bucharest: Imperimeria Naţională, 1938), 670.
3  The inscription is in Romanian: “În această casă a locuit / între anii 1431–1435 / domnitorul
Țării Românești / VLAD DRACUL, / fiul lui / Mircea cel Bătrân.” In English: “In this house
[there] lived, between the years 1431–1435, the ruler of Romania, Vlad Dracul, the son of
Mircea the Elder.”
4  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 108. For the original French, see De Wavrin, ed. Iorga, 7.
Exile As a Way of Life 3

The Basarab Dynasty

Dracula’s father was also named Vlad. Given the epithet Dracul—“the devil,”
in Romanian—, he was a scion of the Basarabs, the ruling house of Wallachia,
which derives from the name of the founder of the state and of the dynasty,
Basarab I (r. 1320–1352). Basarab (or Basaraba) is a name of Turkic origin, mean-
ing literally “the conquering or reigning father.” A diploma of King Charles I
dated November 26, 1332 refers to Basarab’s father as “Thocomerius.” This has
generally been interpreted as the Slavic “Tihomir,” although a few specialists
have derived it from the Turkic “Toktamir” (Tok-Temür, literally “strong iron”).
However, the fact that the king of Hungary refers to Basarab in several docu-
ments as “the Romanian” indicates that this was simply one of the popular
names in Romanian society at the end of the thirteenth century. At this time,
significant Turkic populations (the Cumans) were living in the territory of
present-day Romania.5
We know very little about the beginnings of the Wallachian dynasty. The
country’s oldest chronicle recounts that its founder, the so-called Black Prince
(Negru Vodă), took refuge in the southern Carpathians in 1290–1291. He fled
his duchy of Făgăraș, also known as the Olt Country (Ţara Oltului), in south-
ern Transylvania. What caused this flight south escaped the sixteenth century
chronicler. We know now that the duchy, probably confiscated from its previous
possessor, was given in 1291 by King Andrew III to Ugrinus, a Hungarian noble.
The majority of the population in this duchy had always been Romanian, and
the duke (in Romanian voievod, abbreviated as vodă), himself a Romanian,
had to take refuge beyond the Carpathians, in current day Wallachia.6 The

5  See Victor Spinei, The Great Migrations in the East and South East of Europe from the Ninth
to the Thirteenth Century, trans. Dana Bădulescu (Cluj-Napoca: Romanian Cultural Institute,
Museum of Brăila Istros Pub. House, 2003), and significantly expanded in a 2006 two-volume
version (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert). Also Mataei Cazacu and Dan Ioan Mureșan, Ioan
Basarab, un domn român la începuturile Ţării Românești [Ioan Basarab, a Romanian prince at
the beginnings of Wallachia] (Chișinău: Editura Cartier, 2013), with current bibliography and
full discussion of Ioan Basarab’s father’s name and origin.
6  Although contested by certain historians, this tradition has been supported with addition-
al arguments by Gheorghe I. Brătianu in “La tradition historique et la formation de l’État
Valaque d’après les études récentes,” Bulletin de la Section historique, Académie roumaine 24,
no. 2 (1943): 161–193. See also his “În jurul întemeierii statelor românești [Concerning the
Foundation of the Romanian States],” Ethos 2 (1975): 8–67 and 3 (1982): 37–119, and Șerban
Papacostea, “Întemeiere și descălecat în tradiţia istoricǎ a constituirii Ţării Românești [The
‘dismounting’ and foundation in the historical tradition of the formation of Wallachia],”
Studii și Materiale de Istorie Medie 19 (2001): 61–66.
4 CHAPTER 1

Hungarian king’s decision ended the last Romanian political formation in

Transylvania. The province would characteristically be governed by represen-
tatives of three “nations” (in the medieval sense of natio: nobles and/or no-
tables of an ethnic group), namely the Hungarians, Saxons, and Szeklers.7
On the other hand, south of the Carpathians, the various principalities ex-
perienced a process of unification which led to the formation of the Romanian
State, i.e., Ţara Românească, or [Ungro]vlahia (Wallachia).8 When this began
is unclear, but possibly it commenced under the Black Prince, and in any case
was brought to fruition under his successors, of whom Basarab was the most
important. In the course of his approximately thirty-year reign, Basarab, prince
of the central region of the area called Muntenia (land of the mountains), suc-
ceeded in extending his authority over the eastern parts of Wallachia up to the
lower Danube, and in concluding an association agreement with the western
area, Oltenia. As part of this Basarab probably exacted homage from the local
princes (voievods and knezes), who wanted to preserve a certain autonomy in
the interior of the state.
The country thus unified was of medium size—around 77,000 square
kilometers—but its geopolitical position was excellent. Controlling the
Danube and its delta, and situated astride commercial crossroads on the one
hand connecting Asia with Central Europe via the Black Sea, and on the other
linking the Balkans up to Hungary and Poland, Wallachia very quickly estab-
lished itself as an important regional power. This initial rise was doubtless en-
abled by the civil wars and anarchy which tore apart the kingdom of Hungary,
down through the extinction of the Arpad dynasty (1301–1308). However, the
return of domestic peace within Hungary, following the 1308 election of King
Charles Robert (“Caroberto”), of the House of Anjou-Naples, meant the begin-
nings of Wallachian dependence on its powerful neighbor. Charles Robert then
appointed Basarab as “our voievod,” but it’s impossible to specify exactly what
this office entailed. In 1330, when Basarab occupied the Danubian fortress of
Severin, in Oltenia, the king commanded that he surrender it to him. When the

7  G. I. Brătianu, “Les Assemblées d’États et les Roumains en Transylvanie: [I & II],” Revue
des études roumaines 13–14 (1974): 9–63, and “Les Assemblées d’États et les Roumains en
Transylvanie: III,” Revue des études roumaines 15 (1975): 113–143. Also László Makkai, “La
Naissance de la société d’ordres (1172–1526),” in Histoire de la Transylvanie, ed. Béla Köpeczi
(Budapest: Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1992), 177–238.
8  For a convenient treatment with bibliography, see Matei Cazacu, “La Valachie médiévale
et moderne: Esquisse historique,” in Art et société en Valachie et Moldavie du XIV e au XVII e
siècles, ed. T. Velmans, 95–158. Special issue Cahiers Balkaniques 21 (1994). Reprinted in
Cazacu, Au carrefour des Empires et des mers, 49–89. Citation here is to the 1994 publication.
Exile As a Way of Life 5

Wallachian prince refused, Charles Robert launched a military campaign and

threatened to pull his vassal—“shepherd of my sheep”—from his den by his
beard. When the king invaded Wallachia with his army, the wily Basarab ne-
gotiated a peace treaty in which he renounced his conquest and agreed to pay
7,000 silver marks by way of compensation, a considerable sum representing
the equivalent of a ton and a half of silver, 74 kilos of gold, or 21,000 gold florins.
This promise persuaded the Hungarian king to shift his position and leave his
restless vassal on his throne—after having, however, burned his residence in
Curtea de Argeș in the hills of the Carpathians. But in a pass of these same
Caparthians, Basarab’s troops made a surprise attack on the Hungarian army,
surrounding them on all sides and inflicting serious losses (November 9–11,
1330). The king owed his salvation to the fact that he had exchanged armor
with one of his vassals, whereas the Hungarian nobles, knights, and bishops
fell beneath the arrows and stones launched by the Wallachians at the top of
the pass. Even the golden great royal seal was lost, and the remains of the army
had great difficulty finding refuge in Transylvania. Basarab kept Oltenia, which
he probably gave as an appanage to his son, who was associated with his fa-
ther’s rule at the end of 1342.
Conflicts between the two states persisted in the reign of Charles Robert’s
son and successor, Louis I the Great (1342–1382). The new king aimed to impose
on his vassal the standard western feudal obligations, while the Wallachian
prince strove to maintain his internal autonomy, and cease paying tribute and
rendering services (angaries) to his feudal overlord. At Basarab’s death in 1352,
his son Nicholas Alexander acceded to the throne, which angered Louis I. The
king of Hungary believed that he alone had the power to name the voievod of
Wallachia, something which Nicholas Alexander categorically rejected, hav-
ing been associated with his father’s rule, and then elected by the nobility.
He would only accept Louis’ confirmation of the choice the Wallachian elite
had made. A new conflict erupted, but the affair over the succession in the
Kingdom of Naples, and a war against Venice regarding possession of coastal
Dalmatia (1356–1358), obliged Louis I to disperse his forces. Nicholas Alexander
now seized the opportunity to distance himself from Hungary. In 1353–1354, he
appealed to the Patriarch of Constantinople—the other great source of legiti-
macy in medieval Europe—for the creation of an ecclesiastical metropolita-
nate in Wallachia. The Patriarch complied, and in 1359 the Wallachian church
was elevated to the rank of a metropolitanate, subordinate to Constantinople,
with Iachint de Vicina as its first metropolitan. In this way, Wallachia defini-
tively adopted eastern Christianity, or Orthodoxy, and abandoned all leaning
towards membership in the Catholic Church, a decision which would have in-
calculable consequences for the future.
6 CHAPTER 1

In the same year, another Romanian prince, fleeing Transylvania from the
north, expelled the voievod of Moldavia, a faithful vassal of Louis I, and suc-
ceeded in maintaining power, despite a military campaign by the Hungarians.
The revolt further extended south of the Danube to Serbia and Bulgaria, and
the Hungarian king henceforth had to content himself with an oath of alle-
giance from his former vassals. This procedural formality translated, in point of
fact, to Wallachia’s quasi-independence from the Kingdom of Hungary, some-
what like the relationship between the duchy of Burgundy under Charles the
Bold and King Louis XI of France. Nevertheless, with each change of prince
in Wallachia, Louis I and then his son-in-law and successor Sigismund of
Luxemburg asserted their claim to nominate the new Romanian princes, who
now bore the title “voievod and lord” (voievod și domn, in Romanian, dux et do-
minus, in Latin), generally translated as duke, army commander, and prince.9
This pretention was a dead letter with the election of Mircea the Old (cel
Bătrân, 1386–1418), the grandfather of Vlad Dracula. Louis I being dead, a suc-
cession crisis once again broke out in Hungary.

Mircea the Old

Mircea is doubtless the most important fifteenth century Wallachian prince,

but his reign was constantly threatened by the growing power of the Ottoman
Turks in the Balkan Peninsula. They had set foot in Europe between 1347 and
1354. Benefiting from the weakness of the Balkan states and the influx of gha-
zis, Turkish “warriors of the faith” from Asia Minor, they quickly took over large
amounts of territory at the expense the Byzantines, Serbs, and Bulgarians.
In 1389, following their victory at Kosovo Polje, they subjugated most of the
Serbian state and four years later transformed Bulgaria into an Ottoman prov-
ince. In so doing, they became Wallachia’s direct neighbor, separated only by
the waters of the Danube. Soon thereafter, a crusade inspired above all by
France and Burgundy failed miserably at Nicopolis (1396). The proud French
knights had disdainfully rejected the Vlach Mircea’s plan to lead the attack,
though it was he who knew the Turks from having confronted them on numer-
ous occasions in 1394 and 1395. Reputedly irresistible, the French heavy cavalry
charge was ineffective before the Turkish light cavalry maneuvers. The crusader

9  See G. I. Brătianu, “Les Rois de Hongrie et les Principautés Roumaines au XIV e siècle,” Bulletin
de la Section historique, Académie roumaine 28 (1947): 67–105; Ș. Papacostea, Geneza statului
în Evul Mediu românesc: Studii critice [The Genesis of the Medieval Romanian State: Critical
Studies] (Bucharest: Editura Corint, 1999).
Exile As a Way of Life 7

vanguard was broken and took to flight, whereas the others, separated from the
rest of the army, were encircled by the Turks and variously massacred or taken
prisoner by the hundreds. The captives were sent to Asia Minor and had to pay
enormous ransoms to secure their release. Meanwhile, Bayezid I (1389–1402)
continued the siege of Constantinople and threatened Hungary and Italy.10

The Ottoman Danger

The Ottoman power seemed invincible until an unforeseen event disrupted

its momentum for some time. In 1402 Timur-i Lenk (Tamerlane), the Mongol
Khan of Asia, defeated Bayezid I’s army in the battle of Ankara and took the
Ottoman sultan prisoner. Bayezid’s empire was threatened with ruin, but this
fate was averted through the political myopia of the Byzantines and other
Balkan lords, along with the Realpolitik of the merchant republics of Genoa
(a great ally of the Turks) and Venice. After a decade of wars among the sons
of Bayezid, Mehmed I came to the throne (1413–1421) and resumed his father’s
policy of conquest. In 1417 the sultan set forth on campaign against Mircea
the Vlach, who had supported Mehmed’s enemies and had seized Dobrogea
(Dobrudja), a province situated between the lower Danube and the Black Sea.
Defeated, Mircea had to surrender a great part of the province and agree to pay
tribute (harac̦) to the Ottomans. A year later, the Wallachian prince died after

10  Older literature, still of value, includes Aziz Suryal Atiya, The Crusade of Nicopolis (London:
Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1934) and Kenneth M. Setton, “The Crusades of Barbary (1390) and
Nicopolis (1396),” in his The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), vol. 1, The Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Centuries (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1976), 341–369.
More recently see “ ‘Nicopolis, 1396–1996,’ Actes du Colloque international organisé par
l’Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon et le Centre national de la recher-
che scientifique réuni à Dijon, au Conseil régional de Bourgogne, le 18 octobre 1996,” eds.
Jacques Paviot and Martine Chauney-Bouillot, special issue, Annales de Bourgogne 68,
no. 3 (1996). Also Kelly DeVries, “The Effect of Killing the Christian Prisoners at the Battle
of Nicopolis,” in Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon: Medieval Warfare in Societies Around
the Mediterranean, eds. Donald J. Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon, History of Warfare,
vol. 13 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 157–172. For the Romanian participation see Șerban Papacostea,
“Mircea la Nicopol (1396): O mărturie ignorată [Mircea at Nicopolis (1396): A Neglected
Source],” Revista de istorie 39 (1986): 696–698. The source in question is the Annales
Hirsaugenses, written by Johan Trittheim (Trithemius), which records that Sigismund
had named as commander of the crusading army “the prince of Wallachia—a brave,
lively and strong man—who, having fought the Turks on many occasions, triumphed
gloriously.” See also Papacostea’s “Byzance et la croisade au bas-Danube à la fin du XIV e
siècle,” Revue romaine d’histoire 30, nos. 1–2 (1991): 3–21.
8 CHAPTER 1

having reigned for thirty-two years, leaving the throne to his son and successor
Michael I.11
Beginning then in 1417, Wallachia was paying tribute to the Turks, but the
majority of its princes swore oaths of loyalty and obedience to the king of
Hungary. This situation may perhaps seem absurd, but to the eyes of shrewd
contemporaries it was not. The tribute ensured peace with the Ottomans. In
this era, Islamic law on war, as it applied to the Christians, recognized only two
spheres: conquered territory, or lands or territory within “the house of war,” re-
maining to be conquered. As regards the latter, one could only conclude truces,
not peace treaties. The tribute-paying lands thus represented an intermediary
state, which in Turkish eyes was temporary.12 As long as good relations pre-
vailed, the merchants and Christian subjects of Wallachia had the right to cir-
culate freely throughout the vast Ottoman territory—buying and selling their
wares, and paying a tax called gümrük (kommerkion in Greek, derived from the
Latin commercium) established at 2% of merchandise value. This was excised
only once, upon either entering or exiting the empire.13 By way of comparison,
under the seventeenth century regime of capitulations, English, Dutch, and

11  Șerban Papacostea, “La Valachie et la crise de structure de l’Empire ottoman (1402–1413),”
Revue romaine d’histoire 25, nos. 1–2 (1986): 23–33.
12  See Viorel Panaite, Război, pace și comerţ în Islam: Ţarile române și dreptul ottoman al
popoarelor [Peace, war and commerce in the Islamic world: the Romanian countries and
the Ottoman law of peoples], 2nd ed. (Iași: Polirom, 2013), and his earlier English version
The Ottoman Law of War and Peace: The Ottoman Empire and Tribute Payers, East European
Monographs, no. 562 (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 2000). In the latter,
Panaite discusses harac̦ as tribute on pp. 204–205. See also Mihai Maxim, Ţările Române
și Înalta Poartă: Cadrul juridic al relaţiilor româno-otomane în evul mediu [The Romanian
countries and the Sublime Porte: the legal framework of Romanian-Ottoman relations in
the Middle Ages] (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 1993), along with Șerban Papacostea,
“Tratatele Ţării Românești și Moldovei cu Imperiul Otoman în secolele XIV–XVI: Ficţiune
politică și realitate istorică [Treaties of Wallachia and Moldavia with the Ottoman Empire
in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries: political fiction and historical reality],” in his Evul
Mediu românesc: Realităţi politice și curente spirituale [The Romanian Middle Ages: politi-
cal realities and spiritual currents] (Bucharest: Corint, 2001), 93–108. Reprinted from Stat,
societate, naţiune: Interpretări istorice. Aniversare a istoricului David Prodan [State, society,
nation: historical interpretations. On the (80th) birthday of the historian David Prodan],
eds. Nicolae Edroiu et al. (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Dacia, 1982), 93–106. Page references are
to the 2001 edition.
13  Franc̦ois Alphonse Belin, Des capitulations et des traités de la France en Orient (Paris:
Chez Challamel Ainé, 1870); Gérard Pélissié du Rausas, La Régime des capitulations
dans l’Empire ottoman, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1910–1911); Nasim Susa, The
Capitulatory Regime of Turkey: Its History, Origins and Nature, Johns Hopkins University
studies in historical and political science, new ser., no. 18. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
Exile As a Way of Life 9

French merchants paid 3%, again only once, either upon entering or leaving
the empire. Considering the extent of Ottoman territory, and the commercial
benefits accruing from access to it, one can hardly regard the tribute imposed
on Wallachia (3,000 golden ducats) as excessive. Let us recall the situation
in medieval France, where one had to pay entry and exit tolls in every city
and lordship, and at every bridge or ford, to such an extent that merchandise
sent from Roanne on the Loire to Nantes was taxed seventy four times, point
to point.14
In the case of Wallachia, a large share of the revenues accruing to the
prince’s treasury also came from taxes on merchandise circulating between
the Ottoman Empire and Transylvania. Thus, assuring peace with the Ottoman
Empire likewise meant keeping international trade routes open. Still in all, this
tribute obligation did not create a situation of dependence vis-à-vis the sultan.
The oldest treaty between the Turks and Wallachians, currently lost, included
a clause with the formula “friend of our friends and enemy of our enemies.”
Thus it was only in case of war between the Turks and the Hungarians that the
Wallachian princes had to choose sides. Which is what they would more or less
happily do.

Wallachia—Strategic and Economic Issues

In 1417, the situation in Wallachia was once again flourishing. Mircea had built
or strengthened many strongholds on the Danube, at the key crossing points.
The most important of these, Giurgiu, sixty kilometers south of Bucharest,
had cost him a veritable fortune. For each stone of the castle erected in this
place, the prince had paid the equivalent of a block of salt weighing more than
one hundred kilos. Such is how rare stone was in this region.15 Built on an is-
land in the middle of the Danube, the fortress was so powerful and its strategic

Press, 1933); and Halil Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire,
vol. 1, 1300–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 195–201.
14  A famous example cited by Albert Malet and Jules Isaac in their Le Moyen Âge jusqu’à la
guerre de Cent Ans: Classe de quatrième (Paris: Hachette, 1926), 432. This was a manual for
fourth year college courses.
15  De Wavrin quotes Vlad Dracul as saying “there was not a stone in the castle that had
not cost [my] father a rock of salt, which in Wallachia is excavated in rocks, in the same
way as one excavates stones in the quarries of other lands” (De Wavrin, trans. Imber,
156; for the original French, see De Wavrin, ed. Iorga, 76). On the fortress of Giurgiu,
see Gheorghe Cantacuzino, Cetăţi medievale din Ţara Românească în secolele XIII–XVI
[Medieval fortresses of Wallachia in the thirteenth-sixteenth century] (Bucharest: Editura
Enciclopedică, 2001), 199–210, with illustrations at the end of the book.
10 CHAPTER 1

position so important that Mircea’s son, Vlad Dracul, declared in 1445 that
from this stronghold the Ottoman Empire could be conquered by Vlach
women armed solely with their distaffs.16 The same year, Jehan de Wavrin de-
scribed it in these terms:

Two days after the Cardinal and the Lord of Wavrin had left Castle
Turquant, they arrived at the island of Georgie. Here there was a strongly
fortified rectangular castle, with four great stretches of wall, with a very
large square tower at the corner of each section. The smallest of these
was larger and stronger than the one at Castle Turquant, and similarly
fortified with wooden machicolations and crenels. Towards the river, it
had two little stretches of wall which left the castle and came right down
to the water. At the end of these there were two towers, each of them with
machicolations like the others. […] all the towers were massive and more
than twenty-four feet high.17

The population of the country grew and international commerce brought

important revenues to the princely treasury. Outside of Wallachia, its princes
had received in fief the duchy of Făgăraș and its neighbor Amlaș in southern
Transylvania, which Louis of Anjou had granted in 1365 to his Vlach vassal.
By the fifteenth century, Wallachia was playing an international eco-
nomic role as guardian of a commercial corridor extending to Asia, via the
Black Sea. Key nodes in this network included the stronghold of Kilia, an old
Genoese trading post at the mouth of the Danube (contested by Moldavia);
the Danubian port of Brăila, one of the most important in the country; the
city of Brașov (Kronstadt) in southern Transylvania, inhabited by Germans,
which held important commercial privileges (e.g., scala, staple right), con-
ferred by Louis of Anjou; and then, some dozen kilometers to the east, still in
southern Transylvania, the Saxon city of Sibiu (Hermannstadt), terminus of
the road running from Thessaloniki up to Nicopolis on the Danube, via Serres
and Sofia. On these routes, Transylvanian and Wallachian merchants, and later
Levantines (Turkish and Balkan traders), as well as Genoese and Venetians,

16  Again reported by De Wavrin: “If I can have my castle—which my father built—back in
one piece, it will not take more than the women of Wallachia with their distaffs to con-
quer all Greece” (De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 155; for the original French, see De Wavrin, ed.
Iorga, 76).
17  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 151–152; for the original French, see De Wavrin, ed Iorga, 70.
Exile As a Way of Life 11

brought spices and silks from the Orient which they exchanged for cloths,
velvet, and iron objects from the West.18

The Succession Crisis of 1420

The reign of Michael I only lasted two years. In April or May 1420, a Turkish
army attacked Wallachia and Michael was killed in battle. He was the first
prince to fall before the Ottomans; so too would two others, in the course of
the century. In place of Michael, Mehmed I installed another of Mircea the
Old’s sons, this one illegitimate. This intervention was not the first of its sort,
but it would have important consequences for the country and the dynasty.19
Until this date, succession to the throne was resolved in two ways. The
oldest method was for the reigning prince, who bore the title grand voievod
(mare-voievod) to associate his eldest son with his rule, usually with the title
voievod of Oltenia. This was notably the case with Basarab I, who associated
his son Nicholas Alexander with the throne in 1342, and also Mircea the Old,
who did the same with Michael from 1391. Throughout this interval, associa-
tion to the Wallachian throne was, on two occasions, an act between broth-
ers. The last of these took place in 1385, with Dan I and Mircea the Old. Dan’s
death in a conflict with the Bulgarians made Mircea the sole reigning prince
before he associated his own son with the throne. In consequence Dan’s sons

18  Radu Manolescu, Comerţul Ţarii Romînești și Moldovei cu Brașovul (Secolele XIV–XVI)
[The commerce of Wallachia and Moldavia with Brașov (fourteenth-fifteenth century)]
(Bucharest: Editura știinţifică, 1965); Șerban Papacostea, “Kilia et la politique orientale
de Sigismond de Luxembourg,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 15, no. 3 (1976): 421–436, and
also his “Un tournant de la politique génoise en mer Noire au XIVe siècle: L’ouverture des
routes continentals en direction de l’Europe centrale,” in Oriente e Occidenta tra medioevo
ed eta moderna: Studi in onore di Geo Pistarino, ed. Laura Balletto (Genoa: G. Brigati, 1997),
935–947.
19  On July 27, the King of Poland wrote to Sigismund of Luxemburg that the Turks, “swept
away with fury, have invaded and completely overwhelmed the territory of Wallachia
with the full force of their armies, passing everywhere with fire and sword. After numer-
ous and indescribable killings and pillagings, they completely subjected [Wallachia], and
having extracted oaths of loyalty through horrible pressures, they’ve received heavy trib-
ute and taxes” (Prochaska, ed., Codex epistolaris Vitoldi, 487–488). Another contemporary,
deacon John Eugenikos of Thesssaloniki, wrote that in July 1420 terrible earthquakes took
place, following which “Great Vlachia fell to the Turks, and killed were the sons of voievod
Mircea, [among them] Michael, who was living dissolutely, and several of his children”
(Mihăescu et al., eds., Scriptores et acta imperii byzantini saeculorum IV–XV, 341).
12 CHAPTER 1

were set aside, provoking turmoil among their partisans. When Mircea took
refuge in Wallachia in 1395, having been defeated by the Turks, Dan’s son Vlad
proclaimed himself voievod (Vlad I), but he ruled only in the western part of
the country, Oltenia. Supported by the Ottoman sultan Bayezid, Vlad was op-
posed to a close alliance between Wallachia and Hungary. In so doing, he rep-
resented an important political current which feared, above all, the Catholic
proselytizing of the Franciscan and Dominican monks, imposed by the
Hungarian armies.20
Beginning in 1420, the descendants respectively of Dan I and Mircea (the
former known as the Dăneștii, from Dan;21 the latter called the Drăculeștii,
from Dracula) struggled for the prize of the throne of Wallachia. Dan I’s scions
turned for support to the king of Hungary and the Transylvanian nobles, who
likewise were concerned to have the loyalty and alliance of the Wallachian
princes, since they guarded the Carpathian passes. The Drăculeștii were aided
by the Turks who held the bridgeheads north of the Danube. These were im-
pregnable fortified castles which sheltered, alongside the regular soldiers, ir-
regular troops—incendiary raiders and looters (akıncılar)—paid with the
booty they collected (slaves, livestock, etc.).22 The higher aristocracy—the

20  Octavian Iliescu, “Vlad Ier, voïvode de Valachie: Le règne, le sceau et les monnaies,” Revue
roumaine d’histoire 27, nos. 1–2 (1988): 73–105.
21  See Andrei Pippidi, “Despre ‘Dan voievod:’ Rectificări cronologice și genealogice [‘Dan
voievod:’ a revised chronology and genealogy],” Studii și Materiale de Istorie Medie
31 (2013): 47–96, where new identifications and clarifications are proposed.
22  Consider here the testimony of Pope Pius II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini), who died in 1464,
in his Cosmographia: “These days there are two factions among the Vlachs, the Dans
and the Draculas. The latter, being weaker and seeing themselves constantly persecuted
by the Dans, in every possible way, appealed to the Turks and with their military aid crushed
the Dans and almost completely annihilated them. The Dans were supported by János
Hunyadi, who at that time ruled over the Hungarians. He did not, however, restore to
them their possessions, but rather acquired glory and fortune for himself. And so, wrest-
ing the lands of the Dans from the power of the Turks, he occupied and kept them for him-
self and his successors, in perpetual possession” (Pius II, Cosmographia, [1699 ed.], first
part, p. 228). Pius II’s assertions are echoed by archbishop Nicolaus Olachus (1493–1568),
who himself knew the situation in Wallachia well, being a descendant of the princely
family. In his Hungaria (1536) he writes: “Since the bygone times of our ancestors and
up to today, there are two families in our land, from the same origin: the Dans, descen-
dants of Prince Dan, and the Draculas, descendants of Drakul, to whom Enea Silvio makes
reference … The legitimate princes are elected from among these, either with the support
of our king [i.e., of Hungary], or that of the Turkish emperor” (Cited by Ștefan Andreescu,
Vlad the Impaler: Dracula [Bucharest: The Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing
House, 1999], 16–17).
Exile As a Way of Life 13

boyars, who formed the political class par excellence—divided their allegianc-
es between these two powerful neighbors and rivals. Those who had estates
near the Danube tended to favor the Turks for fear of seeing their properties
pillaged and destroyed. Others, whose lands were located in the Carpathian
foothills, cultivated good commercial ties with the Transylvanian cities and
supported the princes nominated by the king of Hungary. However, once in-
stalled on the throne, a prince supported by the Ottomans couldn’t ignore the
importance of good relations with Transylvania and worked to conclude trea-
ties of commerce and friendship with the Saxon cities of Brașov and Sibiu. In
this way, Wallachia could play its role as an intermediary between the Balkan
Peninsula and central Europe. Difficulties emerged when bands of Turkish
plunderers invaded Transylvania. In this situation, the Wallachian prince often
played both sides, collaborating with the Turkish forces while secretly alert-
ing the Transylvanians as to their enemies’ intentions. In addition to this, the
Ottoman sultans had become accustomed to claiming hostages as guaran-
tees of loyalty from the Wallachians. One or several sons of the prince and
high-ranking boyars of the country were brought to Adrianople or Bursa, later
Istanbul, and were educated in the Turkish fashion.23 The Hungarian kings,
for that matter, had practiced the same system since the fourteenth century.
Under these circumstances, ruling over Wallachia required the skills of an ac-
complished tightrope walker.

Vlad Dracul’s Youth

Vlad Dracul himself spent part of his youth as a hostage, but historians disagree
over his place of detention: Buda or Adrianople. In any case, in 1423 emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg indicated in a letter that a son of the late Mircea,
prince of Wallachia, who was “educated at our court,” had fled Buda and
attempted to reach Poland, probably to obtain military aid to occupy his fa-
ther’s throne. The fugitive had been captured by the counts of Uivar (Újvár),
a stronghold on the Galician border, and was forcibly returned to the em-
peror, who at the time supported another prince in Wallachia.24 According to

23  The oldest clear testimony goes back to 1432, when the Burgundian traveler Betrandon
de la Broquière observed in Bursa “about twenty gentlemen from Wallachia, who were
hostages for this country” (De la Broquière, ed. Scheffer, 189).
24  Documente, vol. 2, pt. 1, no. CCCCLXXIII, p. 566. For commentary on information in the
document, see I. Minea, Vlad Dracul și vremea sa [Vlad Dracula and His Times] (Iași: Viaţa
Romînească, 1928), 91ff. A fundamental work, but difficult of access.
14 CHAPTER 1

Romanian historians, the fugitive was Vlad Dracul, even though Sigismund’s
letter calls him “Laykono.” If this identification is correct, then “Laykono” desig-
nates the Romanian name Vlaicu, in Serbian Vlajko, a form derived from Vlad,
Vladislav, or Vladimir. The contemporary Greek historian Doukas provides de-
tails on this episode, telling us that Dracul appeared at Murad II’s court in 1422,
when he was besieging Constantinople, which was then still Byzantine. One
night, the young prince left the Ottoman camp and took refuge in the impe-
rial capital, where he was warmly welcomed by emperor John VIII Palaiologos.
With the latter’s help, Vlad embarked on a galley which brought him, via the
Black Sea, to Wallachia where he tried to win the nobility and people over to
his cause. He was unsuccessful, however, because there were many contenders
for the throne who, variously with Turkish and Hungarian support, were strug-
gling for the crown.25 Vlad therefore had to take refuge in Transylvania, and
turned for help to Sigismund of Luxemburg, who conferred on him the defense
of southern Transylvania against the Turks, and advised him otherwise to bide
his time.26 Vlad’s opportune moment came early in 1431, when a delegation of
Wallachian boyars came to Nuremburg and asked the king-emperor to appoint
a new prince in place of the late Dan II. The latter in fact was not dead, but it is
likely that the great lords of the land no longer wanted him.27 Such, then, is the
evidence at our disposal on Vlad Dracul’s life before 1431.
We may summarize the key events as follows. Between 1395 and 1418, Vlad
was raised at the court of Buda, where his father had sent him. At some un-
known date, but before 1423, he became impatient and tested his luck with
the king of Poland. Sent back to Buda, he next succeeded in leaving Hungary
and proceeding to Murad II and the Turks, whence he made his way to
Constantinople, Wallachia, and finally Transylvania. Subsequently the em-
peror charged him to guard the frontier against Turkish invasions, something
without great importance at the time, since in 1429 Sigismund had concluded a
peace treaty (or rather three year truce) with Murad II, who promptly took ad-
vantage of this to conquer Thessaloniki, the great commercial port of Greece.
It must be said that Vlad Dracul didn’t inspire great confidence in the em-
peror. After all, he already had Dan II at his disposal in Wallachia, who was

25  Doukas, ed. and trans. Grecu, XXIX.6–8, pp. 251/253 [Greekl], 250/254 [Romanian]. For an
English translation, see trans. Magoulias, XXIX.6–8, pp. 172–173.
26  In December 1430 or January 1431, Vlad Dracul wrote to the burghers of Brașov: “You know
well that the lord Emperor has charged me to guard this frontier and without my accord
you will not have peace with Wallachia. And thus you’ve understood that my authority
proceeds from my master the Emperor” (Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile,
no. XXXII, pp. 54–55.
27  Windecke, ed. Altmann, 316–317.
Exile As a Way of Life 15

a faithful vassal and capable warrior. Son of Dan I and thus Vlad’s first cous-
in, and ruling since 1422, Dan was relentless in fighting the Turks and their
protégé, Radu the Bald (Praznaglava), inflicting on them bloody defeats with
Hungarian help. His situation, however, was delicate because the prince of
Moldavia, who had occupied the fortress of Kilia on the Danube, was inclined
to ally with the Turks and Radu the Bald. Thus, between 1422 and 1429, clashes
between the two empires raged along the Danube corridor, with Wallachia and
Serbia as a key theater of war.

New Exile
Several writers, historians, and diplomats of the era have remarked on the fick-
leness of the Vlachs, who passed their time overthrowing princes, sometimes
but barely elected.28 In their defence it must be said that “the supply” was
great. All the Wallachian princes had illegitimate children (Mircea more than
all the others!), in addition to their legitimate children from the two branches
of a dynasty. And all these aspired to the paternal throne, never hesitating to
shift alliances and allegiances, which they did constantly. Consider the judge-
ment of Antun Vrančić (1504–1573)—royal secretary, archbishop of Esztergom,
viceroy of Hungary, and scion of a Dalmatian family. Though writing a century
later, he understood the fifteenth-century situation very well:

Among the Romanians, legitimate and illegitimate children succeed to

the throne equally. For it is generally permitted for all [men] to have two
or three spouses, and for the boyars to have even more. And the voievods
are free to have as many as they like. Thus, even when they have one
whom they call their inseparable wife and honor with the title of prin-
cess, and who enjoys authority, status and the highest consideration be-
fore all other [women], and even if they share the same household, they
nonetheless love the children of their concubines as much as those of
their spouse […]. And all [children] are considered legitimate and have
the right of inheritance. And all the spawn of these voievods, especially in
Wallachia, are forever engaged in spilling blood and other acts of cruelty.
For when one of them has arrived to power, all those who have any con-
nection with him—his brother or any other relative—flee to a foreign

28  “The Vlachs, eternally discontented with their situation whatever it was” (Michael
Bocignoli, “Epistola … ad Gerardum Planiam…, June 29, 1524,” in Veress, ed., Acta et episto-
lae, vol. 1, no. 96, p. 130). See also Laonikos Chalkokondyles: “It is not their custom to keep
the same rulers for long but they are always replacing one tyrant with another based on
what is advantageous for them” (For the original Greek with facing English translation,
see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 1, 2.23, pp. 124 [Greek]/125 [English]).
16 CHAPTER 1

place, every last one of them, if they want to escape being put to death.
For only parents spare their sons, and sons their parents. All those cap-
tured are killed [by the new ruler], or if humanity compels him to avoid a
crime, he cuts off at least the nose, so that being thus disfigured, they are
deprived of the right of succession to the paternal throne.29

Or again:

In former times, these princes were confirmed by the kings of Hungary,

who sometimes installed other princes or returned to the throne those
they had dethroned […]; to these [Hungarian] kings the princes solemn-
ly swore loyalty and paid annual tribute and gave their obedience, inas-
much as they had long been annexed, or rather subjected to dependence
on Hungary. And quite often, feeling awakened memory of their power
of old, and endeavoring to reign anew as their own masters, they re-
belled. This is especially what the Vlachs did during the reigns of Charles
[Robert], Louis [the Great], and Sigismund [of Luxemburg], because
Hungarian domination was detested more than one can say. […] As they
were struck by an innate folly, they had the habit of killing almost all their
princes, whether overtly or in secret, and they would share out all their]
wealth. It was a true miracle if anyone managed to reign three years, or
die a natural death on the throne. On one occasion, in only two years
time, they had disposed of two or three princes. And no one of this line
did not know that the fact of being elected prince meant certain death.
But, this honor obsessed them to such a degree that even if they knew
they had but one day to rule, one could find thousands thus interested.
And even if they are all killed, a thousand others fearlessly follow, reck-
oning that they will have had a good and happy death as long as they’ve
been able to mount the throne for at least one time. So great is the thirst
for glory which one finds in this barbaric people!30

Let us return to Vlad Dracul in 1431. His exile seemed to be nearing an end,
since Sigismund of Luxemburg, King of Hungary and Emperor of Germany, had

29  Vrančić, De apparatus Joannis regis, ed. Salay, 85. For a comparative view of the situa-
tion in the Ottoman empire—where the absence of a strict law of succession and frat-
ricide are frequently reminiscent of the Romanian case—, see Nicolas Vatin and Gilles
Veinstein, Le Sérai ébranlé: Essai sur les morts, dépositions et avènements des sultans
ottomans, XIV e–XIX e siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2003), 89–99, 149–170.
30  Vrančić, De situ Transylvaniae, ed. Salay, 137–140.
Exile As a Way of Life 17

him crowned prince of Wallachia in Nuremberg and also conferred upon him
membership in two prestigious orders, those of Saint Ladislas and the Order of
the Dragon (figs. 3 and 4). The latter had been created by Sigismund in order
to establish a confraternity of nobles attached to his person. It first began in
1408 as a Hungarian order, and subsequently acquired imperial German status.
Its membership included only three foreign sovereigns—the king of Poland,
the despot of Serbia, and Vlad Dracul. The members had to wear the order’s
emblem, a dragon bearing on its back a cross, with the inscription “O quam
misericors est Deus [Oh how merciful is God]” on the vertical arm, and “pius et
justus [pious and just],” later “paciens et justus [patient and just],” on the short-
er horizontal arm. On Fridays, members wore black garb and were obliged to
give alms for widows and orphans of deceased members. Vlad Dracul’s admis-
sion into this order arguably was the highest distinction a Wallachian prince
ever received from the German emperor, and it signaled his entry into the re-
stricted circle of Sigismund’s intimate friends and allies.31
On February 8, 1431, Vlad was already recognized as the prince of Wallachia
because he issued a privilege according Franciscan monks free exercise of their
religion in his country.32 One might thus suppose that the prince had converted
to Catholicism, breaking with a century of adherence to the Orthodox Church
of Constantinople. Wallachia was indeed “worth a Mass.”
Nevertheless, his situation was not so simple. When he arrived in Wallachia,
Vlad received news—confirmed this time—of Dan II’s death in a battle against
the Turks. The Turks then installed on the throne another illegitimate son of
Mircea the Old, Aldea (Romanian form of Aldo, Aude), who had taken the
princely name of Alexander. This was in homage to his other protector, Prince
Alexander the Good of Moldavia. The latter, a Polish vassal, had changed alli-
ances and now supported Sigismund of Luxemburg, the Teutonic Knights, and
the Lithuanians in a conflict which pitted them against Poland.
This shift in alliances was of little matter to Vlad Dracul, since his suzerain
did not wish or was unable to intervene yet again in Wallachia, embroiled as
he was on two fronts—against Poland to the east, and the Hussites to the west.
Under these circumstances, Vlad had to content himself with defending the

31  Windecke, ed. Altmann, 316–317. On the Order of the Dragon, see above, p. xiv, note 6.
32  D RH D, vol. 1, no. 179, pp. 280–281. Here Vlad Dracul bears his usual title (“dei gratia
Walachie Transalpine dominus et terrarum de Omlasch et de Fogaras dux [by the grace
of God lord of Transalpine Wallachia and duke of the lands of Amlaș and Făgăraș]”), and
calls Sigismund of Luxemburg “dominus noster naturalis, in cuius aula gravissimorum
negotiorum causa constitute nunc sumus [our natural lord, in whose court we presently
are on account of very important matters]”).
18 CHAPTER 1

southern frontier of Transylvania and established himself in Sighișoara. The

emperor-king conceded him the right to mint coins, an important source of
revenue at a time when Hungarian coinage was frequently devalued.33

Transylvania, Land of Welcome

Transylvania played a decisive role in the life of Dracula’s father.34 Since 1918,
this region has formed the western part of Romania and encompasses an area
of 102,200 square kilometers. Center of the ancient Dacian kingdom, it was oc-
cupied by Rome in 106 AD and called Dacia. The native population—consist-
ing of Dacians, Celts, and Germans—quickly adopted Latin and fused into the
Daco-Romans, who succeeded in assimilating the migratory peoples, particu-
larly the Slavs, thus forming the Romanian people and language.
After the Hungarians arrived in Pannonia in late 896, settlements—
peaceful or warlike—infiltrated along the course of the rivers originating in
the central plateau of Transylvania and ultimately flowing into the Tisza. On
these rivers barges would transport, westward and southward, salt (one of the
great riches of Transylvania), gold and silver, and wood. To the Hungarians,
who raised livestock in the pustza—the grassy plain which forms their
country—the region seemed like a “terra ultrasilvana,” or “land beyond the
forests,” whence the name Transylvania. Dacia disappeared from memory and
was not rediscovered but for the Renaissance humanists.

33  The mint in Sighișoara was the seventh of those existing in Transylvania at this time.
The older ones were those in Cluj (since 1333); Sibiu (1336); Oradea, Baia Mare, and
Lipova (all 1338); and Brașov (1427–1430). See Octavian Iliescu, Istoria monetei în
România (c. 1500 î. e. n.–2000): Cronologie—Bibliografie—Glosar [History of money
in Romania (ca. 1500 B.C.–2000): Chronology—bibliography—glossary] (Bucharest:
Editura Enciclopedică, 2002).
34  The literature on Transylvania is extensive. See Constantin C. Giurescu, Siebenbürgen,
2 vols. (Bucharest: Institut für Rumänische Geschichte in Bukarest, 1943); Ștefan Pascu,
Voievodatul Transylvaniei [The principality of Transylvania], 4 vols. (Cluj: Dacia, 1971–
1989), and Histoire de la Transylvanie, ed. B. Köpeczi (Budapest: Maison des sciences de
l’homme, 1992). Useful in English are Pascu, A History of Transylvania, trans. D. Robert
Ladd (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1982); History of Transylvania, vol. 1, From the
Beginnings to 1606, eds. László Makkai and András Mócsy, East European Monographs,
no. 581 (Boulder, Colorado: Social Science Monographs, and Highland Lakes, New Jersey:
Atlantic Research and Publications, Inc., 2001); and The History of Transylvania, eds. Ioan-
Aurel Pop et al., vol. 1, Until 1541 (Cluj-Napoca: Romanian Cultural Institute, 2005).
Exile As a Way of Life 19

After three centuries of pressure, the Hungarians succeeded in taking

over the largest part of the province, but their inadequate human resources
obliged the kings of the Arpad dynasty (896–1301) to appeal to foreign popula-
tions to assure the development of the underground riches, and protection of
the borders. Thus, on the eastern frontier (eastern Carpathians) the Szeklers
(Siculi) were settled. Like the Hungarians, the Szeklers were of Finno-Ugric
origin. Following their conversion to Catholicism, they were quickly “Magyar­
ized.” To exploit the gold and silver mines and defend the frontier to the
south (the southern Carpathians), the Hungarian kings appealed for colonists
from the Rhine, Moselle, and Luxemburg areas, who were settled with their
locatores35 and established the first cities in the region. Since they followed
the Saxon law of Magdeburg, which became the model for all German settle-
ments in eastern Europe, these “Flemish guests” (hospites flandrenses) took the
name Saxons—Sachsen in their language, Sași for the Romanians and Slavs.36
The province was headed by a duke, or voievod, a Slavic term used by the
Romanians. It included various administrative entities: Hungarian comitats on
“royal territory,” to the west and in the center; the “seven plus two” Saxon Stühle
to the south and north, as well as two Saxon districts, Brașov and Bistriţa; eight
Szekler szék to the east. The Stühle and szék, literally “seat, chair,” designated
the judicial and administrative centers of each nation.
Alongside these administrative units, Transylvania preserved up to the
thirteenth century the Romanian voievodates and knezates (principalities),
of which the most important were Făgăraș and Haţeg to the south, and
Maramureș to the north. However, the kings of the new Anjou dynasty
of Naples (1308–1387), counselled by their jurists, suppressed the privileges of

35  
Locatores were “middlemen, entrepreneurs, usually foreigners…, who brought ‘guests’
in, and who outlined new settlements, indicating and dividing plots” (Laurenţiu Rădvan,
At Europe’s Borders: Medieval Towns in the Romanian Principalities, trans. Valentin
Cîrdei, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, vol. 7 [Leiden:
Brill, 2010], 32). Cf. also the entry “Locator” in Eugen Haberkern and Joseph Friedrich
Wallach, Hilfswörterbuch für Historiker: Mittelater und Neuzeit, 9th ed., vol. 2, L-Z, UTB für
Wissenschaft: Uni-Taschenbücher, vol. 120 (Tübingen and Basel: A. Francke, 2001), 398.
36  
Geschichte der Deutschen auf dem Gebiete Rumäniens, ed. Carl Göllner, vol. 1, 12.
Jahrhundert bis 1848 (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1979); Roderich Gooss, Die Siebenbürger
Sachsen in der Plannung deutscher Südostpolitik. Von der Einwanderung bis zum Ende des
Thronstreites zwischen König Ferdinand I und König Johann Zappolya (1538), Volkstum
im Südosten, ed. Otto Brunner, vol. 1 (Vienna: A. Luser, 1940); Thomas Nägler, Die
Ansiedlung der Siebenbürger Sachsen (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1979), and Die Rümanen und
die Siebenbürger Sachsen vom 12. Jahrhundert bis 1848 (Hermannstadt: Hora-Verlag, and
Heidelberg: Arbeitskreis für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde, 1999).
20 CHAPTER 1

the traditional Romanian nobility who did not possess royal diplomas. The
Romanian nobles were relegated to the rank of commoners or free peasants,
and their ancient principalities were dissolved within the Hungarian comitats
or the Saxon Stühle. Certain Romanian voievods and knezes consequently
converted to Catholicism in order to keep their privileges, while others were
stripped of their status, or chose to emigrate over the Carpathians, to Wallachia
and Moldavia.37
Particularly interesting are the “seven plus two” Saxon Stühle (whence the
German name for Transylvania, Siebenbürgen38) and the two Saxon districts.
The most important of these in southern Transylvania were Kronstadt (in
Romanian Brașov), Hermannstadt (Sibiu), Broos (Orăștie), Mühlbach (Sebeș),
and Schassburg (Sighișoara). Located not far from the Wallachian border, all
these cities—but especially Kronstadt and Hermannstadt—profited from
their excellent strategic position on the trade routes coming from the east
and the south. They experienced a remarkable expansion in the fourteenth
century when they were granted the commercial staple right privilege (called
Stapelrecht in German and scala in medieval Latin). This stipulated that mer-
chants plying their trade in southern Transylvania were required to stop for
at least one month in one of two cities where they had to sell their goods
giving purchasing priority to Saxon burghers.39 By way of contrast, in 1358 the
Kronstadt merchants received privileges of freely circulating with their wares
on the routes leading to the lower Danube and the Black Sea running through
Wallachia. This doubtless was in consequence of the tie of vassalage be-
tween the Hungarian crown and the Wallachian princes. The crown similarly
displayed its sovereignty through the minting of coins. The first Wallachian
princes struck coins aligned with Hungarian types. This situation, which lasted
from 1365 to 1452, had important consequences for the Wallachian economy,

37  Brătianu, “Les Assemblées d’États et les Roumains [I & II],” and “Les Assemblées d’États et
les Roumains [III].” Also see Papacostea’s studies on this topic, republished in his Geneza
statului în Evul Mediu românesc.
38  In fact, there were at least ten of them.
39  In Mária Pakucs-Willcocks’ definition, “a staple [right] obliged alien merchants to stop
in the town thus endowed [i.e., with the right to a staple] to stay for a fixed number of
days and to sell exclusively to the local merchants, wholesale. Depending on the nature
of the staple, after the mandatory period merchants were free to travel beyond the staple
town or not” (Sibiu—Hermannstadt: Oriental Trade in Sixteenth Century Transylvania,
Städteforschung, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für vergleichende Städtegeschichte in
Münster, ed. Peter Johanek, Reihe A: Darstellungen, vol.73 [Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2007],
10–11). Cf. also the entry “Stapelrecht” in Haberkern and Wallach, Hilfswörterbuch für
Historiker, vol. 2, 595.
Exile As a Way of Life 21

which was subject to the fluctuations and devaluations of Hungarian coinage.

With each devaluation of coinage in Hungary—i.e., a reduction in the per-
centage of precious metal (silver) in coins, even though their exchange value
remained the same—, the Wallachians lost in exchanging old coins for new.
Likewise, the devalued coinage was not accepted at its nominal value in the
Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, but rather evaluated according to the weight
of precious metal it contained. When the Wallachian princes tried to impose
an advantageous exchange rate for their money, relative to devalued Hungarian
coinage, the authorities from Transylvania, where most of the mints were op-
erating, protested to the king. The latter would threaten the Romanians with
retaliation, such as seizing their two Transylvanian fiefs—Făgăraș and Amlaș,
situated between Brașov and Sibiu—, or choosing another prince from among
the numerous claimants to the throne, who were watching for their moment of
opportunity, sheltered behind the walls of the Saxon cities. This forced devalu-
ation of Wallachian coinage thus entailed losses in transactions conducted
abroad.40
On the other hand, the Transylvanian Saxon cities enjoyed an unprecedent-
ed prosperity, which intensified currency speculation. The problem was com-
pounded by political refugees—claimants to the Wallachian throne, boyars,
and burghers—who found refuge in Transylvania. All the efforts of the princes
of Târgoviște (the Wallachian capital in the fifteenth and sixteenth century) to
secure the expulsion or extradition of these nuisances failed before the Saxons’
spirit of freedom and hospitality. Unless, of course, these demands were cou-
pled with threats or sufficient bribes.
Thus Vlad Dracul lived for several years secure and sound in Sighișoara,
whence he plotted against his more fortunate rival, Alexander I Aldea, who had
robbed him of the throne in 1431 and benefited from the support of Hungary
and Moldavia. It is true that Sighișoara was approximately 200 kilometers from
the Wallachian border, a significant distance which could not be traveled in
less than a week.

40  Matei Cazacu, “L’Impact ottoman sur les pays roumains et ses incidences monétaires
(1452–1504),” Revue roumaine d’histoire 12, no. 1 (1973): 159–192. Reprinted in Cazacu, Au
carrefour des Empires et des mers, 373–402. Citation here is to the 1973 publication. Also
see Octavian Iliescu, “Le Droit monétaire dans les pays roumains aux XIVe–XVe siècles,” in
Nummus et historia: Pieniądz Europy średniowiecznej [Nummus et historia: money in me-
dieval Europe], ed. Stefan K. Kuczyński (Warsaw: PTAN, Komisja Numizmatyczna, 1985),
195–203.
22 CHAPTER 1

Vlad Dracul, Protector of Transylvanians

During his stay in Sighișoara, Vlad Dracul had as his source of revenue the
city mint, which struck royal Hungarian coinage. One can hardly suppose,
however, that his life was tranquil and carefree. His mandate to defend the
southern border of Transylvania required him to organize a complex system of
spies and agents to monitor the trade routes with Wallachia, and inform him
of Turkish movements in the Danube area.
Surveillance of this dangerous neighbor was intensified since 1395, the date
of the first Ottoman expedition in south Transylvania.41 Some years later, in
1420, the Turks invaded the province from the southwest, attacking Broos
(Orăștie), which was totally destroyed, and then besieging Sibiu, but unsuc-
cessfully this time. The rich villages of the area had been reduced to cinders
and their inhabitants taken away and enslaved. In 1421, a particularly violent
invasion through the Bran Pass had devastated the environs of Brașov, i.e., the
Ţara Bârsei area (Burzenland). The city of Brașov had been taken by assault,
and its burghers had to take refuge in the upper citadel, the walls of which held
firm. The Turks had burned the sectors of the lower city, and easily dispersed a
detachment of Szeklers, who arrived as reinforcements.
There were three access corridors from Wallachia into Transylvania from
the southeast, namely Bran Pass and two other defiles adjacent the rivers
Prahova and Teleajen.42 They all led to Brașov, which explains the extensive
correspondence between Vlad Dracul and the city’s municipal council. In one
of his letters, not dated, the prince reminds the burghers of Brașov that they
were exempt from guarding “the mountain and high plateaus” (in Romanian,
plai). It was the men hired by Vlad who shed “their blood for you, everyday.”43
One sees the full meaning of this mission of protection between the feasts
of St. George (April 23) and St. Demetrius (October 26), dates which almost ex-
actly coincide with the beginning and end of the Ottoman military campaign-
ing season. During these months of high alert, Vlad Dracul needed to be on
the ground, alongside his men, on a continual basis. The danger diminished at

41  Gustav Gündisch, “Siebenbürgen in der Türkenabwehr, 1395–1526,” Revue roumaine

d’histoire 13, no. 3 (1974): 415–433; Aurel Decei, “Deux documents turcs concernant les
expéditions des sultans Bâyazid Ier et Mourad II dans les pays roumains,” Revue roumaine
d’histoire 13, no. 3 (1974): 395–413.
42  Sergiu Iosipescu, Carpaţii sud-estici în Evul Mediu târziu (1166–1526): O istorie europeană
prin pasurile montane [The South-Eastern Carpathians in the late Middle Ages (1166–
1526): A European history through the mountain passes], Colectia teze de doctorat,
vol. 27 (Brăila: Muzeul Brăilei, Istros, 2013).
43  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. XXXII, pp. 54–55.
Exile As a Way of Life 23

the end of November, when snowfall blocked the routes and hampered
mobility of the cavalry, which had difficulty finding fodder for the horses. Yet
there was nothing to prevent a surprise attack. In 1421, the Turks arrived at
the end of March, the snow having melted early that year. This was all the
more challenging, since the access roads to Transylvania were hardly larger
than mountain footpaths, traversing torrential streams and climbing through
rocky cliffs. A century and a half later, a young French jurist, Pierre Lescalopier,
described one of these routes as follows:

The same day we crossed twenty or twenty-five times a torrent coming

from the mountains, and in some places it was so deep that the horses
were swimming, and the coach was in water above the wheel axles. To
avoid getting soaked, I climbed up on top. The horsemen were soaked
to the waist. On June 24 [1574] we crossed another torrent on foot, [which
was coming] from the first mountain of Transylvania. Then we proceed-
ed up this mountain, [which was] high, difficult and full of large trees,
and at the top we found the first watch station of Transylvania, and a
small fort which didn’t have a door, in which one entered with a ladder
they carry with them.44

The pass along the course of the Prahova River barely allowed the transit of
one horse at a time, and wasn’t enlarged until 1789. Finally, passage along the
Teleajen, the easternmost of the three access routes, reached a height of 1,460
meters. A seventeenth century source records that a Turkish army had to climb
on all fours in order to reach Transylvania via this route!
Vlad Dracul’s second charge was to operate the mint at Sighișoara. Initially,
the prince wanted to install himself in Brașov where a mint had been function-
ing since 1427–1430, but the municipal council opposed this for fear of dis-
pleasing the Wallachian voievod. Likewise the Saxon burghers of Sighișoara
wanted to prohibit Vlad Dracul from living within their walls for fear of los-
ing the revenues which the existence of a mint might generate for them. The
Ottoman campaign of 1432 in the region, a veritable catastrophe, rapidly
changed their view.45

44  Edmond Cleray, “Le Voyage de Pierre Lescalopier, ‘Parisien,’ de Venise à Constantinople,
l’an 1574,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 35 (1921): 21–55. For the full text, see Paul I.
Cernovodeanu, “Călătoria lui Pierre Lescalopier în Ţara Românească și Transilvania la
1547 [The Travels of Pierre Lescalopier in Wallachia and Transylvania in 1547],” Studii și
Materiale de Istorie Medie 4 (1960): 444–445.
45  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCXV, pp. 258–260.
24 CHAPTER 1

In June of 1431, the Turks had entered Wallachia and defeated prince
Dan II, who went missing in the battle. A new prince, Alexander Aldea, was in-
stalled in his place and issued his first charter on the 14th of June. Having con-
cluded an alliance with Sigismund of Luxemburg and the prince of Moldavia,
Alexander Aldea refused to pay tribute to the Ottomans. Their reaction was
immediate: another military expedition, entailing conquest of the strongholds
of Giurgiu and Turnu, at the junction of the River Olt and the Danube. The
prince was obliged to visit Adrianople, the Ottoman capital, to form an alliance
with Murad II and commit to tribute payment. He also left as hostages numer-
ous sons of the leading boyars, pledging the loyalty of the Wallachian political
class. In exchange, the new prince was able to return with 3,000 of his subjects
who had been taken prisoner during the campaign. More ominously, he had to
agree to allow the Ottoman armies free passage through Wallachia to plunder
Transylvania.
The Transylvanians, first to be targeted by this agreement, accused the
Wallachian prince of betraying their interests. In a letter addressed to the bur-
ghers of Brașov, Alexander Aldea tried to exonerate himself in these terms:

You have declared with these malicious words that we would abandon
the king [of Hungary] and subject ourselves to the Turks. But in truth we
serve the king and the Holy Crown and we pray God that the king will
come here [on campaign], and we shall come forth to meet him. And he
who lies, may dogs soil upon his wife and mother! I have gone against
my will to the Turks to regulate affairs, and I have restored peace to what
remains of the country, and to you, and I have delivered 3,000 captives,
and you say that I have the intention to pillage, together with the Turks,
the country of the king. God will not permit me to pillage your country,
but I will serve as long as I live the king and all Christians, just as I have
promised.46

The Wallachian prince’s logic differed from that of the Transylvanians. The lat-
ter worried for their security, while Alexander Aldea feared military occupation
of his country and its transformation into a pure and simple Ottoman territory.
With this compromise, he hoped for an eventual campaign led by Sigismund
against the Turks in which he promised to participate. Unfortunately, however,
the emperor-king, himself having been defeated by the Turks in 1428, was un-
able to organize a new campaign, since he was then fully occupied with the
opening of the counsel of Basel, and his battle against Poland and the Hussites
of Bohemia.

46  Ibid., no. XXIII, pp. 43–44.

Exile As a Way of Life 25

In 1432, the three year truce between Sigismund and Murad II would ex-
pire. The emperor, bogged down in his central-European conflicts, neglected
to renew it and the Sultan ordered an expedition to Transylvania via Wallachia.
Alexander Aldea hastened to warn the burghers of Brașov of the danger and
called for immediate military aid. In a dramatic letter dated June 1432, he out-
lined for them his plan of action:

And know that the army [Ottoman] numbers 74,000 men, but they are
not seasoned soldiers; they are all young men, children and women; they
don’t know the use of arms and less than half are good combatants. […]
And let Your Lordship know that the Turks had destroyed my country
after having sworn oaths with curses, and having accepted my oaths of
loyalty. And let Your Lordship know that this army will come against
Transylvania and that I myself will be there, by my God and by my faith.
And when your army will mobilize, I shall abandon [the Turks]. Because
they have often deceived me and now I wish to give them as good as they
got. And I swear by God that none of them will be left alive.47

The Wallachian prince’s plan failed, at least partly. The Turks divided their
forces into three groups, which dispersed to plunder the wealthy Saxon villag-
es and towns. While so engaged, they were surprised by Transylvanian troops,
perhaps aided by the Wallachians. A unit that had set forth to attack Moldavia
was routed June 22, 1432, and the remaining Turkish troops were heavily at-
tacked by the Teutonic Knights, whom Sigismund had engaged to monitor the
Danube between Hungary, Serbia and western Wallachia. The role played by
Vlad Dracul’s forces in this action is unknown, but it is clear that he himself
must have fought against the invaders.48
The year 1433 passed without further incident, despite the Transylvanians’
fears of a permanent installation of Turks north of the Danube.49 At length, in
the autumn of 1434, Sigismund of Luxemburg returned to Hungary and began
serious preparations for a campaign against the Turks. The emperor had, he

47  Ibid., no. XXX, pp. 49–50.

48  Minea, Vlad Dracul, 113–117.
49  Alexander Aldea found time to visit the Council of Basel, which sat between 1431
and 1437. On October 11, 1433, Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg made his appear-
ance, and on Christmas Eve “the other duke of Valachia, brother of the Turks, arrived,”
bearing sumptuous gifts for the emperor and cardinals. (See Beckmann et al., eds.,
Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, 70–71 and notes). Likewise for discussion and identification of
the personages in this passage, see Daniel Barbu, “Ţara Românească și Conciliul de la
Basel [Wallachia and the council of Basel],” Revista Istorică 5 (1994): 5–15.
26 CHAPTER 1

believed, an important asset: a claimant to the Ottoman throne in the person

of Murad Davud C̦ elebi, the son of a brother of sultan Murad II. Sigismund
intended to utilize him to win to his cause Turkish dignitaries discontented
with the sultan, and to overthrown him. This step, however, was never taken.

Finally, the Throne of Wallachia

It was ultimately Alexander Aldea’s death by illness in 1436 which rendered

vacant the throne of Wallachia. Vlad Dracul’s time had come. Informed by
his spies, the claimant appealed for help from Sigismund, who arranged for
Transylvanians to assist him in his undertaking.50 Vlad made contact with the
key boyars of the land and crossed the Carpathians in September. Initially de-
feated in a confrontation with the Turkish beys (governors) of the Danube,
Vlad ended up establishing himself rather quickly. On January 24, 1437 he
issued documents with the titles of “autocrat,” and “grand voievod and lord,
governing and ruling over all the area of Ungro-Wallachia [Wallachia adjacent
to Hungary], and duke of the trans-[Carpathian] territories of Făgăraș and
Amlaș.”51
His exile finally at an end, Vlad Dracul now commenced his reign. A shrewd
observer would have been able to recall, on this occasion, the words of the
emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1391–1425):

And then, once I had passed the age of children, though before reaching
manhood, a different fortune ensued with my advancing age, one filled
with storm and tumults, allowing one to prophesy from many signs that
such fortune, then, impending, would reveal our preceding troubles as a
dead calm by contrast.52

These reflections apply as equally to Vlad Dracul, as to his two sons, Mircea and
Vlad Dracula.

50  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. XXXVI, pp. 23–24.

51  D RH D, vol. 1, Addenda [doc.] A, pp. 463–464; DRH B, vol. 1, no. 80, pp. 142–144. The latter
is dated January 20, 1437 and is uniquely preserved in an eighteenth century Hungarian
translation, the authenticity of which is suspect. Vlad Dracula is entitled, among other
things, “the Lord’s anointed.”
52  Manuel II Palaiologos, “Discourse to Alexios Iagoup,” translated by John W. Barker, Manuel
II Palaeologus (1391–1425): A Study in Late Byzantine Statesmanship (New Brunswick, New
Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1969), 412.
 CHAPTER 2

A Prince and His Sons (1436–1448)

A Peace Treaty with Murad II

The installation of Vlad Dracul on the Wallachian throne was not uncontested,
even though his rival Alexander was dead. The new prince immediately had
to confront an Ottoman invasion accompanied by pillaging, destruction, and
the capture “of an innumerable number of people” who were sold as slaves
in the markets of Edirne. On November 17, 1436, it was learned in Constantino­
ple, which was still Byzantine, that Vlad Dracul was paying tribute to the Turks,
with whom he had just concluded a peace treaty.1 By this treaty, the exact text
of which has not survived, the voievod agreed to bring the harac̦ personally
to the sultan every year, and—as seems very likely—to guide and accompany
the Ottoman armies on their expeditions to Transylvania. Such was the price
to keep peace with this powerful neighbor, whose military force and above all
its rapidity of movement were irresistible. Vlad Dracul, as a Realpolitiker, knew
perfectly well the risks of such an accord, because Sigismund of Luxemburg
had, before his imperial coronation in Rome in 1433, sworn to Pope Eugene IV
that he would never form an alliance or a treaty with the Turks or “schismatics”
(i.e., orthodox Christians).2
Suspected by his neighbors of playing games with the Ottomans, Vlad
Dracul hastened to give guarantees of good will to the burghers of Brașov and
renewed on two occasions—January and August 1437—their commercial priv­
ileges with Wallachia.3 He also indicated his plan to transfer the mint, of which
he was still in charge, from Sighișoara to Brașov. The rationale was to allow the
inhabitants of Brașov to reap the economic benefits from such a shift, but
the Sighișoara burghers’ indignant protests dissuaded him from it.4

1  Letter of the Dominican John of Ragusa to the fathers at the Council of Basel, in Iorga, Notes
et extraits, vol. 4, p. 26.
2  Charles-Joseph Hefele and Dom H. Leclercq, Histoire des conciles d’après les documents
originaux, vol. 7, part 2 (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1916), 802; Daniel Barbu, “Pèlerinage
à Rome et croisade: Contribution à l’histoire religieuse des Roumains dans la première moitié
du XVe siècle,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 33, no. 1–2 (1994): 38.
3  D RH D, vol. 1, no. 243, pp. 340–341; Addenda [doc.] A, pp. 463–464. The text of the two docu­
ments is identical.
4  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCXV, pp. 258–260.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_003

28 CHAPTER 2

Meanwhile, at this juncture, a formidable peasant rebellion disrupted

north-west Transylvania between April 1437 and February 1438. The Romanian
and Hungarian serfs confronted the noble armies and cut them to pieces,
thanks to the Hussite military tactics they had adopted. The immediate cause
for their discontent was financial and economic, because Bishop George Lépes
insisted on receiving arrear payments due on the ecclesiastical tithe in the
new strengthened coinage rather than its debased predecessor, the exchange
value of which was clearly inferior (10% less than the value of the new coin­
age). The old money had been withdrawn from circulation and declared un­
acceptable by the authorities, who threatened those not cooperating with
excommunication. The war lasted the entire year and its consequence was the
creation of a noble league named the Union of the Three Nations (unio trium
nationum: the Hungarian, Saxon, and Szekler nobles), who prohibited serfs
from possessing arms and participating in war. Despite these internal distur­
bances, the Turks didn’t stir and Transylvania was spared.
Meanwhile, Vlad Dracul undertook to respect his obligations towards
Murad II, who in spring 1437 had launched a campaign against the bey of
Karaman, in Asia Minor. Doukas, a contemporary Byzantine historian, relates
the following about “Dragoulios,” voievod of Wallachia, in his history:

Dragoulios [Dracul], voievod of Vlachia, also crossed the straits and after
arriving in Prusa [Bursa] sought an audience with Emir Murad, to whom
he declared his submission and promised that whenever Murad need­
ed to cross into Hungary, he would afford him passage. Moreover, he in
person would be his guide as far as the borders of Alamania and Russia
[that is, Poland]. Delighted by this commitment, Murad invited Dracul to
eat and drink at his table, and, according him high honors and lavishing
upon him and his companions, who were more than three hundred in
number, many gifts, he embraced and dismissed him.5

The Wallachian prince’s gesture was motivated by the same considerations

as those of his predecessor. Wallachia was unable to oppose the Ottomans,
who could disrupt the entire economic and social life of the country with their
raids. Serbia, also a vassal of Hungary, had likewise submitted to Turkish pro­
tection, and its despot George Branković (1427–1456), who had lost half of his
country, had given his daughter Mara in marriage to Murad II to save the rest
(1433). The peasant revolt which had engulfed Transylvania, and the inability of

5  Doukas, trans. Magoulias, XXIX.10, p. 174; for the original Greek with Romanian translation,
see Doukas, ed. Grecu, XXIX.10, p. 254 [Greek]/255 [Romanian].
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 29

the old emperor—who would die December 9, 1437—to defend the southern
border of Hungary and Transylvania, were thus the key factors arguing in favor
of preserving the accord with the Ottomans. The absence of a peace treaty
with the sultan would also have meant the closure of Danube frontier, and the
impossibility of Wallachian and Transylvanian merchants to benefit from
the enormous potential of the interior Ottoman market. This peace with the
Turks was even in the Transylvanian Saxon merchants’ interests, since they
had no alternative means of selling their cloths from Flanders, Cologne, and
Bohemia, and buying in return pepper, saffron, cotton, and other eastern prod­
ucts such as silk and camel’s hair.
Doubtless the nobility, burghers, and peasants of Wallachia supported
their prince, preferring to pay tribute to the Turks rather than see their coun­
try ravaged by them. Entrenched in their strongholds on the Danube, notably
Vidin, Nicopolis, Turnu, and Giurgiu, the irregular troops could organize raids
and strike anywhere. These raids were not haphazard, but operated as a well-
organized system, intended to distress the Christian populations and provide
the Balkan and Asian markets with slaves. Consider how they are depicted
by a contemporary young Saxon student known as George of Hungary, who
spent twenty years in the Ottoman Empire (1438–1458), before taking refuge in
Rome where he published his account in 1480:

The Grand Turk always has at his command, in addition to his regular
army, a special corps of 20,000 or 30,000 men, who are renowned as
much for their outstanding military ability as for their physical strength.
This corps is commanded by one of the most experienced men of their
army; like a band of thieves, they work as well by night as by day. These
men have the right to pillage at least once per year, sometimes even two
or three times per year, depending on circumstance. They move so dis­
cretely and silently that that their neighbors hardly realize they’ve set
forth, for reasons I will discuss later. Because they conduct all their opera­
tions on horseback, it is necessary for them to know how to prepare and
pace themselves, as well their horses. This they do following a strict dis­
cipline and method, so that even if they had to be on the move, day and
night, for a full week, neither they nor their horses would suffer from the
length of such an expedition. This is why at times when they have noth­
ing to do, they take good care of themselves and their horses, taking nour­
ishment in a way to increase weight and add strength. However, when
they decide to set forth on an expedition, they are vigilant, for seven or
eight days [before departing], in imposing on themselves and their horses
a strict and uniform discipline—this is to say, restrictions on food and
30 CHAPTER 2

drink and moderate exercise, in order that all the superfluous weight be
eliminated and in this way all accumulated fat remain in their bones to
render them good and fit for the ride. Before leaving, they made known
the route they would take and the place they would go, except they had
no intention of going to that place, and [they said this] to deceive spies,
in case there were any. They would not set out without having with them
one or two trustworthy guides, who know perfectly the roads and paths
of the country to which they were going. They move with such power and
speed that in the space of one night they could cover a journey of three or
four days. Thus if anybody ever noticed them he would not be able to out­
distance them and betray the secret of their imminent arrival. They have
such an ability to understand the nature and qualities of their horses that
they seem perfect masters of the whole science of animals. […]
And I have not dealt with the following points. They are able to disre­
gard the cold of winter, the heat of summer, and all the other hardships
connected with weather or the season. They are neither fatigued nor
frightened by the inhospitable character of the places they traverse or by
the length of their journeys. And above all, what is particularly admirable
is they don’t bring with them either drink, food, arms, or clothes which
could hinder their movements. They are satisfied with very little, indeed
next to nothing when they travel the longest distances, and they never
stop before taking some poor fools by surprise, and returning sated. But
on this subject, I just want to note quickly that the things that are said of
them are frankly not believable. And, truth be told, if I had not verified
these things with my personal experience and had I not seen them with
my own eyes, I would never be able to attach the slightest faith to what
I’ve heard said [about the Turks] […]
Who could apprehend what fright and terror they evoke in those
whom they descend upon unexpectedly and by surprise? Even if their
victims have hearts of iron or diamond, they are invariably repulsed and
rendered powerless. But what can one do, to whom could one turn, when
one is suddenly surprised by a mortal enemy with unsheathed sword?
This certainly is frightening to hear about, but experiencing it is even
more terrible, as I’ve seen with my own eyes. But what end does this
serve? Only for this—so they can seize people by surprise, with neither
bloodshed nor massacre, keeping those alive at the physical level whom
they intend to kill on the spiritual level. […] Thus, for every captive, there
are two acts of theft at work. The Turk in effect seeks to satisfy his thirst
for human victims by selling the captive, and the Devil seeks to take faith
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 31

from the captive’s soul, so he may lead him, miserably, along with himself,
to hell.6

Even if the fifteenth and sixteenth century sources give differing statistics, it
is clear that the raids of the akıncılar terrorized the Christian populations and
destabilized their states.7 It was to keep his country free from such invasions
that Vlad Dracul decided to conclude peace with the sultan.
The thorny question of the Turkish expeditions to Transylvania, and the
Wallachian prince’s oath of loyalty to the emperor, still remains. How can these
two elements be reconciled? One could suppose that Vlad Dracul was exasper­
ated by the passiveness of the Saxons who, exempt from providing men to the
royal Hungarian army, shut themselves in behind their walls and contemplated
Ottoman pillaging. In addition, Sigismund of Luxemburg had permitted the
installation in Transylvania of at least one (if not two) sons of Dan II. This
imperial protection heightened pressure on the Wallachian voievod, whose
throne was thus threatened. Finally, the emperor’s failure of imagination—his
inability, or unwillingness, to adapt the defense of Hungary to the conditions of
warfare against the Turks—constituted an argument favoring a compromise
peace with the Turks. And patiently waiting for better times.

The Remarriage of Vlad Dracul

Vlad Dracul was either a widower or separated from his wife, the mother of his
first two sons Mircea and Vlad. For his new wife he chose a Moldavian princess,
perhaps called Marina, the sister of the voievods Ilie and Stephen, who since
1432 shared neighboring Moldavia. She was probably the widow of Alexander
Aldea, and this type of union had been arranged more than once in Wallachian
history. This princess—who after Vlad’s death took the veil under the name
Eupraxia—gave him two children, a son Radu, born in 1438–1439, and a daugh­
ter, Alexandra. With this marriage alliance, Vlad also allied himself with the

6  George of Hungary, ed. and trans. Klockow, 186/194 [Latin], 187/195 [German]; trans. Schnapp,
58–61.
7  In chapter one, we defined the akıncılar as incendiary raiders and looters, or more precisely,
irregular troops who were paid with the booty they collected (slaves, livestock, etc.). See
above, p. 12. For contemporary comment on their activities, see De Promontorio de Campis,
ed. Babinger, 54–55; Da Lezze, ed. Ursu, 150–151; and Spandounes, ed. Scheffer, 148–151. For an
English version of the Greek text of Spandounes, see Nicol, II.228, p. 125.
32 CHAPTER 2

king of Poland, Vladislav Jagiello, whose wife, Sofia, was the sister of the wife of
Ilie of Moldavia. This alliance consolidated Vlad Dracul’s prestige in his coun­
try and abroad. On the latter front, at the death of Sigismund of Luxemburg,
the crown of Germany and Hungary devolved to Albert of Habsburg, but part
of the Czech nobility offered the Bohemian crown to the Polish king’s broth­
er, the future Casimir IV. Apparent, here, is the emerging stranglehold of the
Polish dynasty of Jagiello on central Europe, which could constitute an impor­
tant asset for Wallachia and its prince.

Murad II’s 1438 Campaign in Transylvania

The new emperor Albert of Habsburg (1438–1439), son-in-law of Sigismund,

didn’t take the Turkish threat seriously. His priorities were elsewhere. Polish
troops had just entered Bohemia, which is why, on February 14, 1438, Albert
announced to the burghers of Brașov that he had confided their protection to
“our faithful Vlad, voievod of our transalpine country.”8 Nothing more. Nothing
regarding a truce. Nothing about potential peace negotiations with the sultan
who, well informed on the internal situation of the empire, thought that the
time had come to liquidate the rest of the Serbian despotate (which he did in
1438–1439) and strike a hard blow to Hungary. Murad II knew that the impe­
rial troops were on campaign in Bohemia. He targeted Buda, the Hungarian
capital, as the focus of his campaign, but the melting of snow and heavy rains
swelled the rivers, which flooded the plains of southern Hungary. The sultan,
at the head of 70,000 or 80,000 soldiers,9 decided then to turn east and attack
Transylvania. The campaign lasted for almost two months; it was the most de­
structive of all Ottoman invasions to that point. The Turks came up the Mureș
valley, plundering and setting fire to the Saxon, Hungarian, and Romanian cit­
ies and villages. Ten years later one still encountered in these areas abandoned
localities and churches in ruin. Alba Iulia, the future capital of Transylvania,

8  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. XXXIX, p. 25.

9  According to the Turkish chronicler Oruc̦ ibn Ādil, a contemporary of these events. For the
Ottoman text, see Oruc̦ ibn Ādil, ed Babinger, 41 (ms. O) and 115 (ms. C). For a Romanian
translation with notes, see Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 53. Oruc̦ specifies that
the Ottoman army included 30,000 akıncılar (the same number given by George of Hungary),
through whom the beys “wash their hands in the blood of Christians.” For a recent discussion
of these events, see John Jefferson, The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad: The
Ottoman-Christian Conflict From 1438–1444, History of Warfare, vol. 76 (Leiden: Brill, 2012),
159–163.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 33

was attacked and pillaged. On the other hand, Sibiu resisted a siege of eight
days, while Brașov’s suburbs were destroyed. The Ottomans encountered no
military resistance, which speaks to the state of the province, barely recovered
from the peasant revolt of 1437 and early 1438.
The sultan summoned Vlad Dracul to guide his troops. With a heavy heart
(timore mortis [in fear of death]), as he himself admitted, the Wallachian
voievod served as a guide for the Ottoman army in a region he knew perfectly,
and which he in theory was protecting.10 We may nonetheless comprehend
his true feelings in the way he dealt with the inhabitants of Sebeș when it was
under siege. Here is the account of one of the principal actors in this drama,
George of Hungary, who was taken prisoner by the Turks on this occasion:

At this time, I was a young man of fifteen or sixteen, from the same prov­
ince [of Transylvania]. The previous year I had left the place where I was
born [Romoș] and had come to a fortress, or rather a small city—called
Sebeș by the Hungarians and Mühlbach by the Germans—, in order to
study. This city was rather populous but poorly fortified. When the Grand
Turk arrived and set up camp and commenced the siege, the prince of
Wallachia, who had accompanied the Grand Turk, came before the walls
and, owing to the ties of friendship he had previously made with the in­
habitants, appealed to them to cease hostilities. And he persuaded them
to follow his advice and not fight the Grand Turk, because, in any case, the
city walls were not sufficiently strong to resist assault. He advised them to
surrender the city peacefully to the Grand Turk. He himself would secure
the Grand Turk’s [permission] to bring the city notables with him, to his
own country [Wallachia]. Then, when they so desired, they could come
back or remain. As for the rest of the population, the Turk would not in­
flict any material or personal damage, but would take them off to his own
country and give them lands which they would possess. Later on, under
more favorable circumstances, they might return or remain in peace, as
they wished. And we saw that all this came to pass, as [the Wallachian
prince] had promised.11

Nonetheless, a group rejected this advice and decided to take refuge in a tower
and resist unto death. George of Hungary was among them:

10  See in this regard his letter to Queen Elizabeth published in Beckmann, ed., Deutsche
Reichtagsakten [unter] König Albrecht II: 1438, 524.
11  George of Hungary, ed. and trans. Klockow, 150/152 [Latin], 151/153 [German]; trans.
Schnapp, 30–31.
34 CHAPTER 2

Such was the situation when, the [following] morning, the Grand Turk
came in person to the city gates and ordered that all those who were de­
parting with their families be recorded, one by one, in the registers. And
also that, after being given an escort, they be conducted to his own coun­
try without inflicting any material or physical harm. He gave the prince
of Wallachia the right to lead certain citizens and notables, in the same
way, to his own country.12

Vlad Dracul therefore knew perfectly well the Ottoman custom of transferring
foreign and Christian populations to the interior of their empire. A peaceful
surrender spared the inhabitants of Sebeș not only the destruction of their city
and plundering of their possessions (to the great displeasure of the Turkish
soldiers), but also and above all their lives. A twenty year stay in Turkey taught
the same thing to George of Hungary:

[The Turks] consider the death of even one man a great loss. It is for this
reason that the Grand Turk, though he holds extreme power and could
take by force of arms numerous lands and islands, nonetheless takes care
not to kill men. He prefers to take them alive and have them pay tribute
rather than subjecting them by force and inflicting bloodshed. It there­
fore follows that they overwhelmingly prefer not to kill men, unless con­
strained to by extreme necessity, that is to say, when they are defending
themselves or fleeing. But they seek, as a general rule, to take men alive.13

This information is confirmed in a charter of Albert of Habsburg, ordering

Transylvanian dignitaries to assist the nobles of Sebeș who were returning
from their apparently gentle captivity in Wallachia. Only four among them re­
mained in Wallachia—a priest and three citizens accused of treason for having
organized the city’s surrender. There were also a priest and some nobles who
negotiated the surrender of Kelling (Câlnic), another Saxon stronghold, and
who thus were spared. One might attribute the clerics’ attitude to the fact that
the Turks allowed Christians freedom of religion in the cities that voluntarily
surrendered, but pillaged and destroyed religious sites in cities and villages
that offered any resistance.14

12  George of Hungary, ed. and trans. Klockow, 152 [Latin]/153 [German]; trans. Schnapp, 32.
13  George of Hungary, ed. and trans. Klockow, 192/194 [Latin], 193/195 [German]; trans.
Schnapp, 61.
14  Gündisch, “Siebenbürgen in der Türkenabwehr,” 425.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 35

George of Hungary, the only survivor of the “infernal” tower (the Turks set
it on fire to force the defenders to surrender), was sold with his unfortunate
companions in the slave markets. Chained one to another, they were brought
on foot to Edirne, where they were again sold in the city’s market.
After the retreat of the sultan’s army, which was carrying off an immense
amount of booty, another Ottoman expedition pillaged the Szekler country
at the end of the same year 1438, without encountering any significant
resistance.
It wasn’t until 1439 that the new emperor assembled an army to fight
Murad II in Serbia, but without success. On October 27, Albert of Habsburg
died of dysentery amidst his troops, who were unable to block the Ottoman
capture of Semendria (Smederevo), the last city of the despotate of Serbia,
which now disappeared as an independent state for more than four hundred
years.

Vladislav, King of Poland and Hungary

The death of the emperor-king plunged Hungary into anarchy. The pregnant
Queen Elizabeth guarded the throne for three months, and then gave birth to
a son, Ladislas “the Posthumous,” who would inherit the crown. A regency was
necessary and it was towards the new Duke of Austria, Frederick of Habsburg
(elected king of Germany in February 1440, then emperor) and second cousin
of the deceased, that Elizabeth’s party turned. Elizabeth took refuge in Vienna,
while the majority of the Hungarian nobility chose, in place of the newborn
baby, Vladislav III, king of Poland (1434–1444). The country needed above all
an energetic sovereign to confront the Ottoman threat. Vladislav (in Hungary,
Vladislav I) only established himself after three years of war against the new
emperor Frederick III, who had been proclaimed the infant Ladislas’s tutor
and had secured, as previously indicated, the Holy Crown of Hungary.
Vladislav Jagiello, the new king of Hungary and Poland, proclaimed at Buda
in January 1440 but not crowned until July, had decided to fight the Turks re­
lentlessly thanks to the combined military resources of the two kingdoms.
Even while fighting Frederick III and his partisans on the western frontier of
Hungary, Vladislav reorganized the defense of the southern part of the coun­
try. In so doing, he was inspired by the model his predecessors on the Polish-
Lithuanian throne had put in place, faced with the Tatar threat, especially in
Podolia. This region, taken from the Tatars by grand-duke Olgierd of Lithuania
in 1362 and 1363, had been given to three brothers, members of the Korjatowicz
family, to oversee its defense and colonization. When Poland occupied the
36 CHAPTER 2

province in 1430, King Vladislav Jagiello continued the initiatives and installed
there the Buczacki family, headed by the brothers Michal, Teodoryk, and
Michal-Muzylo, who exercised the same political and military functions as had
the Korjatowicz a century earlier.15

János Hunyadi, Defender of the Transylvanian Frontier

In 1440, the vital problem for Hungary was the defense of the southern
frontier, bounded by the Danube, the Sava, and the southern Carpathians.
The western flank of this zone of more than eight hundred kilometers was
Croatia and Slavonia, controlled by magnates aligned with Frederick III. The
men chosen to carry out the crushing task of defending this area were Nicholas
Újlaki and János Hunyadi (Iancu de Hunedoara). Újlaki was appointed Count
of Temes (Timiș), with authority over the western sector; Hunyadi was the ban
(marquis) of Severin and voievod of Transylvania, with oversight of the east­
ern part, of greatest interest for us. The following year, these two men jointly
shared the office of count of Temes and voievod of Transylvania, thus indicating
that the command of the kingdom’s entire southern frontier had been unified.
János Hunyadi (1404 or 1405–1456) was shaped by an encounter with several
worlds. He came from a noble Romanian family from southwest Transylvania,
where the Hunyadi estate (Hunedoara, in Romanian) is located. This his father
received from Sigismund, for his services fighting the Turks (1409). Like many
young nobles drawn to the profession of arms, János had served under sev­
eral magnates of the Hungarian kingdom, notably the Florentine condotierre
Filippo (Pippo) Buondelmonti degli Scolari, Count of Ozora, charged with the
defense of the banat (march) of Severin. Between 1431–1433, he served in the
entourage of Duke Filippo Maria Visconti of Milan, following which he passed
directly into emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg’s service, and participated in
wars against the Bohemian Hussites.
In his capacity as defender of the Hungarian frontier, János Hunyadi distin­
guished himself in 1440 with a victory over the Turks in Bosnia. The following

15  Robert Bächtold, Südwestrussland im Spätmittelater (territoriale, wirtschaftliche und so-

ziale Verhältnisse), Basler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenchaft, vol. 38 (Basel: Helbing
&Lichtenhan, 1951), 80–91; Matei Cazacu, “À propos de l’expansion polono-lithuani­
enne au nord de la mer Noire aux XIVe–XVe siècles,” in Passé turco-tatar, preśent sovié-
tique: Études offertes à Alexandre Bennigsen, eds. Charles Lemercier-Quelquejay et al.,
Collection Turcica, vol. 6 = Civilisations et sociétés, vol. 74 (Louvain: Éditions Peeters, and
Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1986), 99–122.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 37

year, capitalizing on the respite which Murad II’s illness gave Transylvania, he
began to organize the defense of the province which he and Nicolas Újlaki
jointly commanded as voievod. In October, he ordered the burghers of Brașov
to open a mint in their city, regardless of any protests from Vlad Dracul.16 In
November-December, the two voievods met together in Wallachia. Although
the details of their discussions are unknown, it is certain that the Hungarian
dignitaries required that the Wallachian prince collaborate more reliably in
defending Transylvania against the Ottomans.
The results of these efforts were apparent in 1442, when Hunyadi crushed
two Ottoman armies that had come to pillage the country, commanded by the
governor of Vidin and the beylerbeyi (governor) of Rumelia, Șehabbedin Pașa.
The booty was immense, the extent of which the Franciscan Bartholomaeus de
Giano describes as follows:

From that victory, the Wallachians—even the shepherds in the fields—

are all rich. And they are dressing [now] only in silk robes and gold cloth,
from the booty and clothes taken from the Turks, which they’ve donned
in great vanity.17

The same Franciscan records the sultan’s reaction when he learned of these
defeats:

And when he heard [the news], he very nearly lost his mind, and never
recovered his spirit, in deep sorrow. He dressed in black, and for three

16  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. XLIII, pp. 27–28.

17  De Wavrin, ed. Renouard, vol. 2, 10; Nicolae Iorga, “Les Aventures ‘sarrazines’ des Franc̦ais
de Bourgogne au XV e siècle,” in Mélanges d’histoire générale, ed. Constantin Marinescu,
Université de Cluj, Publications de l’Institut d’Histoire Générale, vol. 1 (Cluj: Cartea
Românească, 1926), 36–37. For the course of hostilities, see Alfons Huber, “Die Kriege
zwischen Ungarn und die Türken, 1440–1443,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 68
(1886): 159–207; Francesco Pall, “Le condizioni e gli echi internazionali della lotta anti­
ottomana del 1442–1443, condotta da Giovanni di Hunedoara,” Revue des études sud-est
européennes 3, nos. 3–4 (1965): 433–463; Emanuel Constantin Antoche, “La Bataille de la
rivière d’Ialomita (2 septembre 1442): Une victoire majeure de la chrétienté face aux ar­
mées ottomans,” in Nouvelle histoire bataille = Cahiers du Centre d’études d’histoire de la de-
fense 9 (1999): 61–88; and Antoche and Güneș Ișıksel, “Les batailles de Sibiu (22 mars 1442)
et de la rivière de Ialomiţa (2 septembre 1442): Essai de reconstitution d’après les sources
de l’époque,” in “Extincta est lucerna orbis:” John Hunyadi and his Time. In Memoriam
Zsigmond Jakó, eds. Ana Dumitran et al. = Mélanges d’histoire générale, nouvelle série,
vol. 1, pt. 2 (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. IDC Press, 2009), 405–426.
38 CHAPTER 2

days he neither drank nor ate, nor spoke, except for these words which
he often repeated: “The time has come when God will take away the
glove [i.e., sword] from our hand,” casting his turban to the ground, in
great rage.18

Vlad Dracul, Prisoner of the Turks

After recovering from his crisis, Murad II decided to occupy Wallachia mili­
tarily and transform it into an Ottoman province. Vlad Dracul found himself
completely isolated. On the one hand, he hadn’t acted to ensure the security
of the Ottoman invading forces, and might even have attacked the remains
of the army after its first defeat, in Transylvania, on March 22. On the other
hand, János Hunyadi needed a more compliant ally in Wallachia. Supported by
the king of Hungary, he managed to install on the throne Basarab II, one
of the sons of Dan II who had taken refuge in Transylvania after his father’s
death. Abandoned by Hunyadi and expelled from his throne, Vlad Dracul
sought to realign with the Turks. At this juncture, he was contacted by a Turkish
official (subașı) from Giurgiu, bearing a safe conduct from the sultan, who in­
vited him to Edirne and guaranteed him safety.
Although his friends and relatives advised him not to take this trip, Vlad
Dracul accepted the sultan’s invitation. He couldn’t hope to retake the throne
against an adversary of János Hunyadi’s stature, but he counted on his diplo­
matic skill to be able to convince Murad II to support him in his ambitions.
As soon as he arrived in Edirne (July-August 1442), Vlad Dracul was brought
before Murad II:

[The sultan] at first received [Vlad Dracul] with great honour. The Turk
and all his army were camped outside the city in a multitude of tents and
pavilions.
The day after the Lord of the Vlachs had arrived, the Grand Turk gave
a great banquet for him, summoning all his subashis and captains to en­
tertain the Lord of Wallachia. The Grand Turk himself was in a pavilion
lined with crimson, sitting as if on a tailor’s workbench adorned with rich
cushions, pillows of gold and silk and cloth. The entrance to the tent had
been set up to a height of about ten feet, so that he could see his captains
and men. The Lord of Wallachia was sitting outside the pavilion, to the
right of the Turk, on cushions and cloth-of-gold carpets. To the Turk’s left

18  De Wavrin, ed. Renouard, vol. 3, 9–10.

A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 39

was his Bellarbey, which is as much as to say “lord of lords.” The other no­
bles were sitting in a wide circle starting on his left and right, so that the
Grand Turk could see them eating. When the banquet was over the Turk
retired to his great tents and, shortly afterwards, sent the subashi who had
brought the Lord of Wallachia to take him prisoner. This he did and cast
him into the castle of Gallipoli, situated on the Strait of Romania which
we call St. George’s Arm. Here he imprisoned him in chains. He had all
the people who had accompanied the Lord of Wallachia led back to their
country, where they reported the great act of treachery which the Grand
Turk had committed against their lord. This greatly troubled his subjects,
because they could well imagine to themselves that the Turk had com­
mitted this act of treachery hoping that, left without shepherd or guard­
ian, he could conquer them easily. At this time, the Lord of Wallachia
had only a single son, aged between thirteen and fourteen, who was not
capable of governing such a kingdom, and especially not in time of war.
As a result of all this, there was great distress throughout the land.19

These events made a deep impression on contemporaries, who interpreted

them in various ways. Some added that the prince had been decapitated, while
others claimed that his boyars had been dispossessed of their lands and re­
placed with Turkish timariots, etc. Once Vlad Dracul was thrown in prison,
Murad II sent a new army to Wallachia to try to establish an Ottoman adminis­
tration and to attack Transylvania yet again. This army, commanded by the bey-
lerbeyi (governor) of Rumelia, Șehabbedin Pasha, was defeated by Hungarian
and Wallachian troops on the Ialomiţa River on September 2, 1442.
Following this new defeat, the sultan dressed in black and decided to fast.
János Hunyadi gave him another reason for fasting soon enough. In September
1443, and largely at his own expense, he organized an army of 35,000 combat­
ants, mostly Romanian nobles from Transylvania and the Banat, whom he led
in an invasion of Ottoman territory. Along with him were prince Basarab II and
his Wallachian troops, and Serbian contingents of despot George Branković,
who had taken refuge in Hungary. The “Long Campaign”, as it was called, lasted
four months, from September 1443 until January 1444. Hunyadi won several
victories against the Ottomans who had never seen a Christian army at the
feet of the Balkan Mountains. The campaign was late in departing because of
the difficulty of assuring stability on the western front, where Frederick III,
pressed by the pope, ended up accepting a truce. Added to that were the heavy
challenges and uncertainties Venice experienced in equipping a fleet capable

19  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 108. For the original French, see De Wavrin, ed. Iorga, 6–7.
40 CHAPTER 2

of closing the Dardanelles, and the turmoil in the Catholic church torn by con­
flict between Pope Eugene IV, on the one side, and the cardinals of the Council
of Basel, and their antipope Felix V, on the other.
At length, having made their way to the Balkans—covered with snow, and
fortified by the Turks—János Hunyadi ordered a general retreat in January,
1444. His plan of driving the Turks from Europe was postponed until the sec­
ond part of the year. On February 2, he returned to Buda in triumph, where the
Diet unanimously resolved to continue the crusade.20
Murad II, for his part, hardly sat idle. Back in January, 1444, he proposed a
twenty or thirty year peace treaty, declaring he would accept the restoration of
the despotate of Serbia and require, in exchange, the liberation of numerous
Turkish captives, including his own brother-in-law. Convinced that an alliance
between Hungary and Wallachia represented a serious threat to the Turks,
Murad acted to free Vlad Dracul from detention in Gallipoli:

When the Lord of Wallachia arrived, the Grand Turk told him that he
wanted to institute a good peace and a concord with him. If he would
promise and swear an oath that neither he nor any of his subjects
would make war against him, he for his part would promise and swear an
oath to send him home to his country, free and at liberty. He assured him
in his letters that he would never make war against him and, furthermore,
that if he had to wage war against whomsoever it might be, he would
bring aid and assistance at his own expense. Now he had already held the
Lord of Wallachia prisoner for a miserable four years, causing him to suf­
fer extreme pain and distress from which he had never expected to escape
except by death. Consequently, he was overjoyed at this opportunity and
agreed to everything that the Grand Turk had asked. In order to satisfy
him, the Grand Turk, for his part, swore an oath and had letters drawn up
confirming everything that he had promised. Thus the Grand Turk sent
the Lord of Wallachia safe and sound back into his own country, where
he was honourably and happily received as someone much loved by his
people. However, when his men learned the details of the agreement, by
which neither he nor they could make war on the Grand Turk during his

20  Emanuel C. Antoche, “Une croisade au Bas-Danube au XVe siècle: ‘La Longue Campagne’
(septembre 1443–janvier 1444),” in Nouvelle histoire bataille = Cahiers du Centre d’études
d’histoire de la defense 9 (1999): 93–113, and also his “La croisade de 1443 dans les Balkans:
Anatomie d’un échec,” in Italy and Europe’s Eastern Border (1204–1669), eds. Iulian Mihai
Damian et al., Eastern and Central European studies, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter
Lang, 2012), 9–30.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 41

lifetime, some were very happy and others very distressed: that is, the
young who take up arms often and gladly, and the elderly and peaceable
who wanted only peace and quiet.21

Vlad Dracul’s return to Wallachia with Ottoman troops did not resolve to a
simple demonstration of force. János Hunyadi’s protegé Basarab II was not
only expelled from the throne, but doubtless also died in the course of these
events.
The Hungarian Diet reconvened in Buda on April 15 and ordered a levy of
the royal army for summer, to continue the struggle against the Turks. It did so
despite opposition from the Polish king’s advisors, who would have preferred
to take advantage of the current good relations with the Sultan to ensure peace
between the two states. Despot George Branković, one of the wealthiest land­
owners of Hungary, concurred with their views, hoping to recover the Serbian
despotate. Vlad Dracul’s example was contagious! In addition to this, the con­
flict with Frederick III over the Hungarian crown had resumed more intensely
than ever, and moreover was complicated by troubles on the Bohemian fron­
tier. It seemed that even János Hunyadi inclined towards negotiations with
the Turks, extracting maximum possible concessions. Caught between these
differing opinions, the twenty-year old king Vladislav, inexperienced in war,
ended up giving in to the peace party, all the while reassuring the papal legate
and Venetian ambassador of his belligerent intentions.
On April 24, 1444, a Hungarian and Serbian embassy left for Edirne, with
one representative each for the king, Hunyadi, and George Branković. They
arrived in Edirne in June, and on the 12th concluded a peace treaty with the
sultan which also included Vlad Dracul, who had re-established relations with
the king and Hunyadi. Murad II resolved Vlad’s situation in the following way:

[The king’s envoy] also told us that it would be agreeable for me to keep
the peace with Blado [Vlad], the Voevode of the Vlachs, on the following
conditions: that the said Blado should pay me tribute as was previously
the custom, and that he should again be bound to us in all our services,
just as he was before, except that he should not come in person to our
court. We agree to this out of love for Your Excellency: namely, that the
Voevode Blado should pay tribute; that he should once again do every­
thing that he was obliged to do in our service; and that he should not
come to our court personally but instead send us a hostage; and also that,

21  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 117–118. For the original French, De Wavrin, ed. Iorga, 20.
42 CHAPTER 2

if our subjects flee to his territories, he should send them back; and also
that we should do the same if his subjects flee here from those places.22

King Vladislav ratified the treaty in Szeged at the end July 1444, after having
extracted new concessions from Murad II, who accepted them, pressured as
he was to cross the Dardanelles to put down a revolt by the Bey of Karaman.
Vlad Dracul conscientiously fulfilled these obligations, but didn’t want to
sacrifice his eldest son, Mircea. Thus he sent the sultan two other hostages—
Vlad, the future Dracula, and Radu, respectively aged fourteen or fifteen, and
five or six. Unfortunately for him, on August 4, less than a week after the treaty
was signed, King Vladislav, János Hunyadi and other Hungarian dignitaries sol­
emnly swore, in the presence of the papal legate Giuliano Cesarini, cardinal
deacon of Sant Angelo in Pescheria, to depart on campaign against the Turks
September 1. When Vlad dispatched his younger sons to Murad II as hostages,
he assuredly was not informed of this about face, regarding which much ink
would spill and controversies swirl.23 The prince of Wallachia must have re­
sented this treachery as a personal offence engineered by János Hunyadi, who
failed to notify him of the king’s shift in political orientation, and thus let him
sacrifice his children.
Normally, the two princely hostages would have been kept at Edirne or
Bursa, as was the case in 1432, but the breach of peace caused the sultan to
transfer them as far as possible from their country—namely to Eğrigöz, cur­
rently in the Emet district, in the province of Kütahya.24

22  Cyriac of Ancona, Treaty of Edirne, trans. Imber, 198; also ed. and trans. Bodnar and Foss,
pp. 42 [Latin]/43 [English]. It is only from Cyriac of Ancona’s Latin translation that the
text of the treaty is known. See Francesco Pall, “Ciriaco d’Ancona e la Crociata contro i
Turchi,” Académie roumaine, Bulletin de la section historique 20 (1938): 33, 57–58, 64. Also
Jean Colin, Cyriaque d’Ancone: Le Voyageur, le marchand, l’humaniste (Paris: Maloine,
1981), 353.
23  Francesco Pall, “Autour de la croisade de Varna: La question de la paix de Szeged et de sa
rupture (1444),” Académie roumaine, Bulletin de la section historique, 22 (1941): 144–158;
Oskar Halecki, The Crusade of Varna: A Discussion of Controversial Problems (New York:
Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, 1943). This subject is addressed by all the
specialists dealing with the history of Poland, Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire at that
time. See most recently Jefferson’s extensive overview, The Holy Wars of King Wladislas
and Sultan Murad, 377–422, and 390 for the terms of the treaty applying to Vlad Dracul.
24  Āșıkpașazāde, ed. Giese, 114; trans. Kreutel, 175–176. According to certain Greek, Turkish
and also western historians, Vlad Dracul’s two sons were delivered as hostages various­
ly in 1438, or 1442, when their father was imprisoned by the sultan. But this hypothesis
does not hold up in light of the Treaty of Szeged, which speaks for the first time of the
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 43

The Disaster of Varna

It is very clear that Vlad Dracul was invited to take part in the Varna campaign
in autumn 1444. The prince, however, decided to respect his oath not to at­
tack the sultan, because the lives of his children depended on it. The cardinal
of Sant Angelo proposed to absolve him of his oath, as he had done for the
king and János Hunyadi, “but nothing came of it to the great discontent of
the said legate and the King of Hungary,” affirms Jehan de Wavrin.25 Still in all,
when the Crusader army crossed the Danube in the last days of September
and stopped at Nicopolis, Vlad Dracul appeared before King Vladislav and ex­
plained his position and his country’s need for peace. He declared that he was
ready to contribute to the common cause, and put 7,000 horsemen under his
son Mircea’s command, to be at the king’s disposal.26 Having thus shown that
he was prepared to make very great sacrifices, Vlad Dracul, with his vast ex­
perience with the Turks, advised the king and his counselors that the sultan’s
hunting party contained more men than the entire crusading army. Seeing that

dispatch of a hostage. Doukas claims that by the terms of the 1444 treaty, Murad II re­
turned Vlad Dracul’s two sons, which is nonsense (Doukas, ed. and trans. Grecu, XXXII.1,
pp. 272 [Romanian]/273 [Greek]; English trans. Magoulias, XXXII.1, p. 183).
25  De Wavrin, ed. Renouard, vol. 2, 42; De Wavrin, ed. Iorga, 22. Unfortunately the crucial line
(“mais rien n’y vailly, dont lesdis legat et roy de Hongrye furent tres mal contens”) is omit­
ted in Imber’s translation, p. 119, which stops with “When he heard this reply, the Cardinal
of St Angele, Legate of our Holy Father the pope, sent back to him [i.e., Vlad Dracul] to
give dispensation absolving him from his oaths.”
26  De Wavrin, ed. Renouard, vol. 2, 66; ed. Iorga, 29; trans. Imber, 124. The German minstrel
Michael Beheim wrote a poem on King Vladislav’s wars against the Turks, based on the
account of a participant in the Varna campaign, namely the Saxon Hans Maugest. It is
Beheim who specifies that Vlad Dracul offered 7,000 Vlachs to participate in this stage
of the campaign. For the original German, see Beheim, Song Poem on King Vladislav, eds.
Gille and Spriewald, ll. 321–330, pp. 337–338; for an English version, trans. Imber, ll. 321–
330, p. 172. Cf. also Constantin Karadja, “Poema lui Michel Beheim despre cruciadele îm­
potriva Turcilor din anii 1443 și 1444: Publicată după manuscrisele Pal. Germ. 334 și 312 din
Biblioteca Universităţii de la Heidelberg [Michel Beheim’s poem on crusades against the
Turks in 1443 and 1444: Publication of University of Heidelberg Library manuscripts Pal.
Germ 334 and 312],” Buletinul Comisiei Istorice a României 15 (1936): 5–17. Other sources
speak of 10,000 horsemen (Chalkokondyles), while the contemporary Polish historian Jan
Długosz records a figure of 4,000 men. On the question of troop numbers and the mili­
tary action, very useful is Emanuel C. Antoche, “Les Expéditions de Nicopolis (1396) et de
Varna (1444): Une comparaison,” Mediaevalia Transilvanica 4, no. 1–2 (2000): 28–74. For a
detailed analysis of the full course of the campaign, with excellent maps and plans, see
Jefferson, The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad, 422–481.
44 CHAPTER 2

the king had decided to fight to the finish, the prince of Wallachia additionally
offered him—according to the Polish historian Jan Długosz—“a pair of very
powerful horses and two men who know the country and so can get [the king]
out of any tight corner.”27
Unfortunately, in the confrontation which took place at Varna on
November 10, the king did not follow Vlad’s prudent advice and, seeing the
Turks retreating, he charged after them. At that moment his horse was killed
beneath him and a janissary, springing up from nowhere, cut off his head.
Horrified and disorganized, the Christians fell back in disorder. János Hunyadi
and his followers succeeded in getting back to Wallachia, but cardinal Cesarini
was lost, probably killed in battle or assassinated by Romanians, allured by the
gold he was carrying.
The disappearance of the young king of Poland and Hungary was a terrible
shock for the Christians. Sultan Murad had Vladislav’s head embalmed with
spices and filled with cotton; his long, black hair combed out; and his face
made up so it would appear alive. This was implanted on a lance, on which also
was attached the peace treaty of Szeged, then paraded before the Christian
camp, and subsequently displayed in all the cities of the empire. Then he sent
this as a trophy to the Mamluk sultan of Cairo. The colors of the shoes of the
deceased king—red and black—were even adopted by the sultan’s court as a
victory symbol.
The Wallachian contingent fought with bravery on this gloomy, gruesome
day. Their commander Mircea was around seventeen years old, and was sec­
onded by his seasoned tutor who had participated in the Battle of Nicopolis
in 1396, and who knew the fighting style of the Turks.28 Halfway through the
battle, the sultan sent a message to Mircea threatening to kill his two brothers
if he continued to fight, which provoked the Romanians to retreat.29 At that

27  Długosz, trans. Michael, 494. For the original Latin, see Długosz, ed. Przedziecki, vol. 4,
p. 716 (“Praebeo deinde tibi ad omnem casum duos velocissimos equos, duosque locorum
peritos homines, si quid adversi acciderit, ex omni te periculo erepturos”).
28  In 1445 Walerand de Wavrin encountered this “old boyar,” aged then around eighty-five.
Although he reproduces his conversations with him, De Wavrin unfortunately does not
mention his name. See De Wavrin, ed. Renouard, vol. 2, 148–149; ed. Iorga, 83; trans. Imber,
160.
29  Beheim, Song Poem on King Vladislav, trans. Imber, ll. 731–740, pp. 177–180: “Many of them,
a countless number, were killed. When the Emperor heard what great losses his men were
suffering, he sent a message to Trakal: if he did not stop fighting before more messages
came to him, he would kill his two brothers whom he had captured. He would do this if
he did not show restraint in battle.” For the original German, see eds. Gille and Spiewald,
ll. 731–740, p. 350. Cf. here Petre P. Panaitescu and Nicolae Stoicescu, “La Participation des
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 45

same time, however, their father no longer entertained illusions and supposed
they were dead, as this letter he addressed to the burghers of Brașov attests:

I implore you to understand that I have left my children to be massacred

for the peace of the Christians, so that I and my country can be with our
master, the king [of Hungary].30

And, in a certain sense, they were dead, because Vlad Dracul would never again
see them. This explains why—despite his dispute with János Hunyadi, whom
he nearly killed with his own hands when he took refuge in Wallachia after the
Battle of Varna—he fully cooperated with the Burgundian fleet which arrived
at the Danube the following year. This expedition’s illusory aim was to search
for King Vladislav and Cardinal Cesarini, who were said to be alive. The eight
galleys which sailed off to rendezvous at Nicopolis with János Hunyadi and
the Hungarian troops were commanded by Walerand de Wavrin, Regnault de
Confide, and Jacot de Thoisy—captain of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy’s
fleet—along with the Venetian cardinal Condulmer. As an old man, Walerand
de Wavrin recounted his memories to his nephew, the historian Jehan de
Wavrin who incorporated them in his Chronique de l’Angleterre [Chronicle of
England]. His narrative reads like an adventure story, with successive episodes
of sieges of castles; battles with the Turks and skillful maneuvers to avoid their
artillery fire; discovery of subterranean granaries of beans, wheat and peas
(“[which] seemed to everyone like manna from heaven”);31 endless brawls be­
tween Romanians and Burgundians over dividing up booty and dead enemies’
clothing; additional fighting “over the swords and scimitars, with some getting
the blades and others the sheaths, one a bow and the other a quiver”;32 and
finally, of course, numerous encounters and conversations with Vlad Dracul
and his son Mircea.

The Campaign of 1445 on the Danube

Mircea was effectively commanding a mounted expeditionary corps which

followed the galleys along the banks of the Danube. To access the river as

Roumains à la bataille de Varna (1444),” Revue roumaine d’histoire 4, no. 2 (1965): 221–231,
with critique of the sources speaking of Vlach “treachery” on the battlefield.
30  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. LIV, p. 78.
31  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 149. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 66.
32  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 147. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 64.
46 CHAPTER 2

needed, they used “manocques,” which were small boats carved from tree
trunks. These were the same type of boats which Alexander the Great found
on the banks of the Danube in 332 BC, and which one regularly saw in Romania
in the 1960s! De Wavrin describes these manocques as “all in one piece, long
and narrow like a pig-trough, with a number of Vlachs in them, many in one,
fewer in another.”33 During this campaign, the strongholds of Silistra (Dristra),
Turtucaia (Turcain Tower), Giurgiu, Rusciuc (Rossico), and Nicopolis were be­
sieged. The Romanians cried out in joy when they saw the damage caused by
an enormous Burgundian cannon. Unfortunately, when the Burgundians en­
trusted them with the task of continuing the assault, the Wallachians blew the
cannon to pieces. They hadn’t waited for it to cool sufficiently after each volley!
At Rusciuc, 12,000 Bulgarians—men, women, and children—implored
the Wallachian prince for permission to migrate to his country, which Vlad
Dracul graciously allowed. What is more, he crossed the Danube to drive
back Turkish soldiers who wished to prevent this, and asked that the galleys
help the Bulgarians cross the river. The operation lasted three days and nights,
and the Burgundians were astonished by their appearance: “Everyone who
saw them said they looked liked Gypsies.”34 Vlad Dracul, whose country was
poorly populated in places, was pleased with the situation:

When they had all crossed the river, the Lord of Wallachia seemed de­
lighted to have won such a numerous people, saying how valiant the
men of the Bulgarian nation were. He thanked the Cardinal and the Lord
Wavrin most sincerely for the favours which they had already done him,
adding that even if the fleet of the Holy Father and the Duke of Burgundy
had achieved nothing by this expedition, apart from saving eleven-
or twelve-thousand Christian souls and releasing their bodies from
captivity at the hands of the Saracens, it would still seem to him to be
a great achievement.”35

In Giurgiu, conquered nearly intact, the situation became dramatic. The Turks
had agreed to surrender the place on the condition that they could keep their
weapons, and their lives would be saved. It was then that Mircea asked for a
private discussion with Walerand de Wavrin, to whom he revealed that the
subașı who had deceived his father with false oaths and engineered his capture

33  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 140. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 53.
34  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 158. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 80.
35  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 158. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 80.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 47

in 1442 was present among the besieged. Mircea further proposed the follow­
ing to De Wavrin:

My father summoned me to make a request. He told me that if I do not, on

his behalf, exact vengeance against the subashi of the castle of Georgie,
he will disown me and not regard me as his son. This is because it is he
who betrayed him. He took him to the Turks under the same Turk’s safe
conduct, and then led him away to the castle of Gallipoli, where he kept
him for a long time with both legs in irons. Now these are the conditions
on which he and his Saracens have surrendered to my father. Their lives
and goods are to be spared, and they have to be led safely into Bulgaria.
I am going to cross the river two leagues from here with two thousand
Vlachs. I shall lay ambushes on the roads, so that when they imagine they
are gong to Nicopolis, I shall be in their way and put them all to death.36

De Wavrin gave no response, which was a way of approving and understanding

this act of vengeance, which he describes rather coldly as follows:

The Lord of Wavrin did not reply to this one way or the other, and the
Lord of Wallachia’s son left to put his plan into action. Two or three hours
later, the Cardinal sent his safe-conduct, sealed for the Turks, to the Lord
of Wavrin, so that he too could append his seal. He replied that it was not
for him to add his seal to the Cardinal’s, given that he was the command­
er of the whole army. He promised, however, that since such a safe-con­
duct had been issued, he and his men would respect it. The Cardinal was
happy with this reply, and the safe-conduct was delivered to the Turks,
together with the boats to cross the river.
When the Turks saw that they had been dismissed, they first of all took
the saddles off their horses and put them into a little boat which had
been brought up in front of the castle. Then they tied their horses tail to
tail, and attached the first horse to the boat which was propelled by oars.
This is how they crossed the river and, to judge from the horses, it seems
that they had done this often enough before. The Turks boarded the other
boats, which were manocques, with all their baggage. When they passed
in front of the galleys, they looked at the Christians with villainous and
thoroughly hostile intent. They carried their bows flexed, with arrows in
their hands and shields on their shoulders, looking as though they were

36  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 156. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 77.
48 CHAPTER 2

ready to fight if anyone said anything to them. This how they crossed the
Danube and entered Bulgaria.
When they had crossed the water, the Turks mounted their horses
ready for the journey. They had hardly set off when the son of the Lord
of Wallachia surprised them with his ambush and put them all to death.
However, the subashi who, as recounted above, had betrayed his father,
was led before him alive. After he had recalled his treachery to him, he
cut of his head with his own hands. As soon as the Vlachs had collected
the corpses of the Turks they laid them out naked along the riverbank,
making a forbidding sight for the men of the galleys as they passed by.37

Finally, the galleys arrived at Nicopolis on September 12. The rendezvous with
the Hungarian army had been was set for August 15, but János Hunyadi had not
yet arrived on the scene. It was decided to set siege to Nicopolis and to raze
a large tower which housed the akıncılar troops when they raided Wallachia.
Walerand de Wavrin, ill and wounded, remained in bed. It was then that prince
Mircea’s tutor visited him and shared his memories of the crusade of 1396:

As the bombards were firing, the tutor of the Lord of Wallachia’s son, a
man of at least eighty, came to see the Lord of Wavrin and told him: “It
is fifty years or thereabouts since the King of Hungary and the Duke of
Burgundy laid siege to the town of Nicopolis which you can see before
you. The place where the battle was fought is three leagues from here.
If you can lift your head and come to this window, I can show you the
place and what the battle was like.” So the Lord of Wavrin, dressed in a
nightgown, had himself carried to the little window. The guardian said to
him: “You can see there where the King of Hungary and the Hungarians
were stationed. The Constable of France was there, and Duke John there.”
The Duke was up against a great round tower which, as the guardian
said, he had mined. It was all ready for firing on the day that the news
of the battle arrived. He also said that, at that time, he was a servant of
the Lord of Coucy, who always retained a following of high-born Vlachs
who knew the strategic sites of Turkey. The governor praised the Lord of
Coucy highly, saying that, on the day before the battle, he had fallen upon
a good six thousand Turks who had come with the intension of surpris­
ing the Christian foragers. In short, he told the Lord of Wavrin all about
the battle, and how the Turks had taken him prisoner and sold him as a
slave to the Genoese, in whose custody he had learned the language that

37  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 156–157. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 77–78.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 49

he was speaking. The Lord of Wavrin was glad to see everything that the
guardian showed him, and to hear everything that he had to say.38

In the meantime, János Hunyadi and his troops arrived. After a brief war
council, it was decided to abandon the siege of Nicopolis, which threatened
to drag on forever, and to return to the Danube at its juncture with the River
Jiu, where the Hungarians had prepared flat-bottomed boats to transport men
and baggage across the river. The season was advancing, St. Michael’s Day was
approaching (September 29), and the Hungarians were still intent on going
and fighting the Turks. At length the sultan’s forces, massed on the right side of
the Danube, retreated and set torch to everything behind them. János Hunyadi
refused to pursue them, fearful of being ambushed, because, as he said, follow­
ing King Vladislav’s death and the Battle of Varna, he was responsible for the
kingdom, the nobility and the people of Hungary.
Thus the campaign of 1445 ended, without any major confrontation, led
by the Burgundian fleet and the Wallachian army. János Hunyadi advised the
departing galleys to avoid the ice on the Danube (it was October 1), and
the Hungarians retired to Transylvania. Walerand de Wavrin and his com­
panions arrived safe and sound in Constantinople, where emperor John VIII
Palaiologos welcomed them warmly and gave them gifts. From there they went
to Venice, then by horse to Rome, and finally on to Lille, where the Duke of
Burgundy learned all about their odyssey.

The Conflict with János Hunyadi and the Death of Vlad Dracul

Vlad Dracul was left on his own to face a possible reaction from the Turks,
but this never came. Murad II had retired to Asia Minor and left European af­
fairs in the hands of his son Mehmed, the future conqueror of Constantinople.
Murad II returned to the helm, however, in autumn 1446. Having signed a
peace treaty with Venice, he was free to wage war in Greece during the win­
ter of 1446–1447. The sultan spent the following summer in Edirne, and Vlad
Dracul—still on cool terms with Hunyadi—decided to renew peace with the
Turks. The treaty restored the status quo of 1444, and the Wallachian prince
had to return 4,000 refugees to Bulgaria. Walerand de Wavrin, let us recall, had
placed the number in 1445 at around 12,000.
In June 1446, the Diet elected János Hunyadi as governor general of Hungary
in the name of the minor king Ladislas the Posthumous, who wasn’t yet seven.

38  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 160. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 83.
50 CHAPTER 2

In this capacity, he was preparing a major new campaign against the Turks,
and the defection of Vlad Dracul irritated him profoundly. His annoyance, we
can assume, was not simply on account of the voievod’s defection, but rather
the assertion of Wallachian independence vis-à-vis Hungary which this for­
eign policy initiative manifested. And it is true that, officially, a state of war
still existed between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, even if—for the
moment—the two adversaries limited themselves to monitoring their respec­
tive movements.
Another issue fed this conflict between Hunyadi and Vlad Dracul, one which
transcended their strategic and political options and touched at the very heart
of their interests. This concerned the problem of currency circulation between
the two countries. Since 1383–1386, the Wallachian princes had aligned their
coinage with Hungary’s, the Wallachian ducat and silver ban being on par, re­
spectively with the Hungarian dinar and penny. This policy indubitably sym­
bolized subordination, since at the same time neighboring Moldavia, a Polish
vassal, aligned its coinage with that of the kingdom to the north. However, the
accelerating financial needs of the period (wars, etc.) forced states to increase
production of coinage to compensate mercenaries and administrators, finance
fortifications, etc. Since reserves of gold and silver were limited, mints were
ordered to reduce the percentage of precious metal and compensate with
copper or lead. The value of the resulting debased coinage, however, was not
lowered but rather decreed as equivalent (or rapaciously, as superior) to the
older unadulterated gold coinage. The older coinage was withdrawn from cir­
culation and had to be exchanged for the new equivalents at the official rate.
Consequently, private individuals lost money in such exchanges. Operative
here was a tax they could not evade, except by hiding the old money, and melt­
ing it down and extracting the precious metal.
At the level of international exchange, when two countries use the same
money, the stronger imposes its debased currency which the weaker is obliged
to accept. Since debasement of coinage was not often publicized, however, and
it took time to detect the devaluation, vassal states often saw their good money
flowing abroad and bad money replacing it, thus experiencing a loss of pre­
cious metal.39

39  This following Gresham’s law, according to which “bad money drives out good.” We
may see this law at work in the fourteenth century, when the count of Flanders, Louis
of Male (1346–1384), abandoned the French monetary system imposed on his country
by Philip the Fair, and expressed his independence by instituting a new system. In 1384,
Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy concluded a monetary union with duchess Jeanne of
Brabant, aiming to give their subjects a uniform currency, with the same exchange rate,
in both regions. But the count of Flanders undertook a secret devaluation of his coinage,
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 51

Relevant here are the successive devaluations of Hungarian coinage dur­

ing the reigns of Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387–1437), Albert of Habsburg
(1438–1439) and his wife Elizabeth, Vladislav I (1440–1444), and the regency of
János Hunyadi (1444–1452), which produced a dramatic fall in the the value
of the silver denier. In 1436, five hundred deniers were valued at one gold
florin. Sigismund of Luxemburg ordered that a new denier valued at one hun­
dred deniers per florin be issued, but the devaluation continued. A coin was
struck in February 1441 with an exchange rate of two hundred deniers per flo­
rin, and was again devalued in July to three hundred deniers to the same gold
florin.40 These debasements of Hungarian coinage penalized Wallachia and its
economy. In response, Vlad Dracul instituted a veritable monetary policy. He
remains, to our knowledge, the first prince of his country to have done this.
He endeavored to block the exportation of good coinage with a significant
percentage of precious metal, and likewise to prohibit the massive influx of
debased coins. In so doing, he came into conflict with the merchants of Brașov
and Sibiu, and then with János Hunyadi himself, who sided with the Saxons.
It was then that Vlad Dracul committed a fatal political error by closing his
country to the Hungarian money.41 In retaliation, Hunyadi launched a light­
ning campaign south of the Carpathians. Vlad Dracul and his son Mircea were
captured and executed. This unfolded between November 23 and December 4,
1447. On the latter date, János Hunyadi issued in Târgoviște, capital of Wallachia,
a document wherein he now proclaimed himself the governor of Hungary
and, by the grace of God, voievod of Wallachia (parcium Transalpinarum). Two
months later, on February 1, back in Transylvania, he rewarded one of his loyal
followers for the blood he had shed against various enemies, among whom was
“the late unfaithful Vlad voievod of Wallachia.”42

which elicited a drainage of Brabantine currency in Flanders. The duchess attempted

the same operation but was compelled to desist in face of threats from her powerful
cousin. This monetary union was the prelude to Flanders’ annexation of Brabant. See
Henri Laurent, La Loi de Gresham au Moyen Âge: Essai sur la circulation monétaire entre
la Flandre et la Brabant à la fin du XIV e siècle, Travaux de la Faculté de philosophie et
lettres de l’Université de Bruxelles, vol. 5 (Brussels: Éditions de la Revue de l’Université
de Bruxelles, 1933).
40  On these details see Cazacu, “L’Impact ottoman,” 161ff.; Lajos Huszár, Münzkatalog
Ungarn: Von 1000 bis Heute (Munich: Battenberg, 1979).
41  As evident from a letter that János Hunyadi wrote to the Saxons of Brașon on February
29, 1448: “Considering that we have decided that our current coinage must circulate in
Wallachia at the same exchange rate as here …” (Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5,
no. 2632, p. 241).
42  D RH D, vol. 1, no. 287, p. 396. For a reconstruction of the campaign, see these articles
by Francisc Pall: “Intervenţia lui Iancu de Hunedoara în Ţara Romînească și Moldova
52 CHAPTER 2

Vladislav II Installed on the Wallachian Throne

In place of Vlad Dracul, János Hunyadi installed on the Wallachian throne a

son of Dan II, Vladislav II, who apparently had already tried his luck a first
time in June–July 1447.43
Hunyadi followed his intervention in Wallachia with a campaign in
Moldavia, where Hungarian troops restored Prince Peter II to the throne be­
tween February 23 and April 5, 1448. In exchange for this aid, the Moldavian
prince ceded to his protector the fortress of Kilia, at the mouth of the Danube,
on its northern distributary Sfântu-Gheorghe.
Disputed by Moldavia and Wallachia, this fortress henceforth housed a
Hungarian garrison to serve as an outpost in preparation for a new confron­
tation with the Turks. And this was not slow in coming. On July 29, 1448, the
Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, sultan Murad II attempted a strike against
Constantinople via the sea, with sixty-five boats. Repulsed by the Byzantines,
the Ottoman fleet sailed up the west coast of the Black Sea and opened siege
on Kilia, whose strategic location was described to Bayezid II, some decades
later, as “the key and door to all Moldavia, Hungary and the Danube.”44 The
Ottoman forces landed to besiege Kilia, but the Hungarian fleet and recently
arrived Romanian troops inflicted a stinging defeat and burned their boats.45
The Kilia affair was in fact only a prelude to the confrontation for which the
two adversaries had long been preparing. The ball was again in János Hunyadi’s
court, and he crossed the Danube in September of 1448, leading an army levied
from Transylvania and Hungary, supplemented with a Moldavian contingent
of 3,000 knights, along with Wallachian troops commanded by Vladislav II, in­
cluding 4,000 excellent archers.

în anii 1447–1448 [János Hunyadi’s intervention in Wallachia and Moldavia in the years
1447–1448],” Studii: Revistă de istorie 16 (1963): 1049–1072; “De nouveau sur l’action de Iancu
de Hunedoara (Hunyadi) en Valachie pendant l’année 1447,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 15,
no. 3 (1976): 447–464; and “Encore une fois sur l’action de Iancu de Hunedoara (Hunyadi)
en Valachie pendant l’année 1447,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 17, no. 4 (1978): 743–753.
43  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 2593, p. 205.
44  “Chielie, la qual e chiave et porta ad tuto lo paese de Moldavia et Ongaria” (Radonić, ed.,
Acta et diplomata, vol. 1, pt. 2, no. CCCXLIX, p. 757).
45  Matei Cazacu and Petre Ș. Năsturel, “Une démonstration navale des Turcs devant
Constantinople et la bataille de Kilia (1448),” Journal des savants 3, no. 1 (1978): 197–210.
Reprinted in Cazacu, Au carrefour des Empires et des mers, 335–346. Citation here is to
the 1978 publication. Also see Ivan Djurić, Le Crépuscule de Byzance (Paris: Maisonneuve
et Larose, 1996), 358, who is unaware of my article and the letter of the Hospitaller grand
master John of Lastic to Charles VII recounting the battle.
A Prince and His Sons ( 1436–1448 ) 53

The combined strength of the allied forces was numerically inferior to that
of the Turks. But reportedly when Hunyadi viewed the Ottoman camp, he
wrote a letter to the sultan along these lines: “Sultan, I don’t have as many men
as you, but even if they are less numerous, know well that they are good, faith­
ful, honest, and valiant.” To this Murad II responded: “Iancu, I prefer a quiver
full of ordinary arrows to six or seven of gold!” Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the
future Pope Pius II, wrote that Hunyadi had captured a Turkish spy, whom he
sent back safe and sound—following the example of Scipio—, after making
him visit his camp!
On October 17, 18, and 19, János Hunyadi encountered the army of Murad II
at Kosovo Polje, and victory once again went to the Turks.46 After this fierce
battle, the sultan collected the heads of the vanquished and made a great pyra­
mid, an ancient Asiatic custom which survived to the nineteenth century.
Hunyadi managed to escape disguised as an ordinary soldier, but he was
captured by the Serbian despot George Branković, who had concluded peace
with the Turks. Hunyadi recovered his freedom with a hefty ransom. As for
Vladislav II, an even more disagreeable surprise awaited him in Wallachia. In
his absence, his throne was taken by a son of Vlad Dracul, supported by an
Ottoman expeditionary corps. This pretender was Vlad Dracula.

46  For the participation of Romanians (Moldavians and Vlachs) in this battle, see Nicolae
Iorga, “Du nouveau sur la campagne turque de Jean Hunyadi en 1448,” Revue historique
du Sud-est européen, 3 (1926): 13–27; Ștefan Andreescu, “Une information négligée sur la
participation de la Valachie à la bataille de Kosovo (1448),” Revue des études des sud-est
européennes 6, no. 1 (1968): 85–92; Matei Cazacu, “La Valachie et la bataille de Kosovo
(1448),” Revue des études sud-est européennes,” 9, no. 1 (1971): 131–139 (reprinted in Cazacu,
Au carrefour des Empires et des mers, 347–357; citation here is to the 1971 publication).
Also see Emanuel Constantin Antoche, “Hunyadi’s Campaign of 1448 and the Second
Battle of Kosovo Polje (17–20 October),” in Reconfiguring the Fifteenth-Century Crusade,
ed. Norman Housley (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 245–285. An anonymous
letter in French, written at Constantinople on December 7, 1448, contains a first-hand
account of the battle. It is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ms. Fr. 1278,
ff. 138–139), and has been published by Nicolae Iorga, “Les Aventures ‘sarrazines,’ ” 42–45.
 CHAPTER 3

First Reign and New Exile (1448–1456)

Dracula was eighteen or nineteen years old when he took the throne of his
ancestors for the first time, the same age as Murad II and Mehmed II when
they ascended the throne of the Ottoman sultans. But, in contrast to these rul-
ers, Vlad had a richer experience, resulting from his experiences since birth
in three different “worlds”—Sighișoara and the world of Saxon Transylvania;
Wallachia where he had lived in the lovely years from late childhood to ado-
lescence; and finally the Ottoman world of Anatolia and Adrianople, where he
had been dwelling since 1444.

A Transylvanian Childhood

The character and mentality of these three worlds varied greatly, and the first
which Dracula experienced—Transylvania—was where he spent his early
youth. Born and raised in the city of Sighișoara, the young prince came to know
an urban landscape which is still preserved today. Built on a high hill which
gave the city its name—castrum Seg (the city on the hill, in Hungarian)—,
Sighișoara seems to look inwards on itself from the walls encircling the upper
citadel. The fortification wall is punctuated by fourteen square or polygonal
towers. A second set of defensive walls, constructed at the end of the fifteenth
century, protected the lower city. The city’s population during Vlad’s time was
around 2,000 inhabitants, much smaller than Brașov (ca. 6,000) and Sibiu
(ca. 4,000). When its first census was taken, at the end of the fifteenth cen-
tury, Sighișoara numbered 638 families, or approximately 3,000 inhabitants.
The vast majority of these families—600—were Saxons (hospites in Latin). The
rest comprised twenty families of peasants with little or no land (the inquili-
ni, in Latin), nine poor families (pauperes), four families of shepherds, three
of servants, and one of millers.1 Sighișoara was governed by a royal judge
(Königsrichter), who presided over the Stuhl (seat of justice), with jurisdiction
over the sixteen free communities. Alongside him were the mayor and munici-
pal council, which consisted of twelve elected senators (experienced elderly

1  Albert Berger, “Volkszählung in den 7 und 2 Stühlen, im Bistritzer und Kronstädter Distrikte
vom Ende des XV. und Anfang des XVI. Jahrhunderts,” Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für
siebenbürgische Landeskunde 17, no. 6 (1894): 74. Cf. also Rădvan, At Europe’s Borders, 84.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_004

First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 55

men), who managed administrative affairs. In 1431–1432, the royal judge was a
certain Jakobus Kraus, who probably held the title of greav, (a local form of the
German word Graf, or count). In 1456, however, the office was held by Valentin
Doleator, a stonecutter or carpenter.
The population spoke one of the numerous Germanic regional dialects col-
lectively called “Saxon,” which in reality originated in western Franconia. This
dialect was shared by a group of thirty-five surrounding villages,2 organized
into three ecclesiastical chapters.
The majority of Sighișoara’s inhabitants were artisans and merchants, since
the city was situated on a trade route linking the Szekler country with Sibiu
and the Mureș Valley, which was covered with vineyards and well maintained
lands. Early sixteenth century documents provide an overview of the artisanal
guilds of Sighișoara, though not all of these were necessarily in existence in
Vlad’s times. The inventory includes shoemakers, barrel makers, locksmiths
and spur makers, wood turners, blacksmiths, furriers, weavers, glove makers,
wheelwrights, bell and metal founders, goldsmiths, tanners, saddlers, rope
makers, masons, carpenters, butchers, cloth cutters, and cutlers. The city had
received the privilege of having annual fairs before Lent and the Sunday after
Pentecost. Its merchants were busy at work especially in Transylvania, but
from 1433 on they also had commercial privileges in Moldavia.3
These prosperous artisans and merchants often sent their sons to study in
the German universities of Vienna and Krakow. Thus, between 1377 and 1530,
no less than ninety-five Sighișoaran youths are mentioned in the archives
of these two universities—fifty-seven in Vienna and thirty-eight in Krakow.
Following their studies, the graduates would return to their country and often
were employed in judicial and administrative capacities.4

2  The names of the villages dependent on the Stuhl of Sighișoara may indicate the name of
the first owner or founder of the locality—e.g., Henndorf, or Hagindorf, which means “the
village of Hagino” (1297), and Bodendorf, or Bundorf, for “the village of Bodo” (1337). They can
also refer to a land form as in Schässburg, or Seg, the latter term meaning “hill” in Hungarian
(1302); likewise Denndorf, Dalia, or Dallendorf, from dalle, delle, which designates a “hollow.”
There are various other senses such as Neidhausen, or Nethus, from nith, meaning “disgrace”
(1309), and Halwelagen or Huldunlach, derived from the Hungarian holdvilag, meaning “light
of the moon,” possibly alluding to the first inhabitants’ arrival at night (1309).
3  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. XXVI, pp. 19–20.
4  Gernot Nussbächer, Din cronici si hrisoave: Contributii la istoria Transilvaniei [From chron-
icles and documents: contributions to the history of Transylvania] (Bucharest: Kriterion,
1987), 36–44, 68–74. This is a translation of Aus Urkunden und Chroniken: Beiträge zur sieben-
bürgnischen Heimatkunde, 2 vols. (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1981–1985).
56 CHAPTER 3

Travelers from abroad were impressed by the equality and solidarity among
Sighișoara’s citizens—despite the existence of a small stratum of patricians
and poor peasants—, as well as the general prosperity and the Saxons’ pas-
sion for building projects. In addition to work on the fortifications, which
had begun in Sighișoara at the end of the fourteenth century, projects in the
times of Vlad Dracula included construction of the Church of St. Nicholas at
the top of the hill (1345–1515), of the Lepers’ Church in the lower city, and of
private houses.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, Antun Vrančić (Antonius Verantius),
a high Hungarian dignitary of Dalmatian origin, described the “Saxon nation”
as follows:

They have preserved down to the present the customs and language of
their ancestors. They are very active and work with great diligence for the
management of their city, commerce, and all the manual arts. Plunder
and theft are unknown to them. They eat rather more hearty than refined
dishes. They are more solicitous and desirous of increasing their house-
hold goods and other objects than any other nation in the province. But
likewise they do not covet the property of others, and content themselves
with their own. And they are so completely eager to raise up buildings,
cultivate fields, and plant vineyards that no part of Transylvania is more
beautiful or fertile than that inhabited by the Saxons. And the king [of
Hungary], seeing this, gave them urban laws and rights and permitted
them to surround their strongholds with walls.
Other than the usual tax, they are asked for money whenever the king
so desires, and the Saxons pay with no ill will or obstinacy […] They fight
on foot, are very strong behind the walls of their cities, but don’t resist
long when fighting on open ground. For this reason, then, when there
are royal expeditions, they prefer to contribute with money rather than
troops.5

Some years later, around 1566–1567, the Italian Giovanni Andrea Gromo found
Sighișoara to be a “happy, healthy, and commercial” city, with a school in the
upper city nearby the church, with distinguished teachers of all specialties and
sciences. Maintained by the community, this school is first mentioned in 1522,

5  Vrančić, De situ Transylvaniae, ed. Salay, 147–148.

First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 57

but must have existed well before. In the fifteenth century, there were no less
than eight schools in the sixteen villages of the Stuhl.6
Aside from their habitat and language, the Saxons of the 240 German cit-
ies and villages of Transylvania distinguished themselves from other groups
through their clothing.7 Here is one of the oldest known descriptions:

The men’s attire is identical to that of Hungary [i.e., the Hungarians],

however they like their coats and tunics fuller. In summers, even in very
high heat, some of them are quite prepared to wear clothes lined with fox
or wolf fur. Priests wear a purple surcoat, a red or blue belt, and a dark-
colored coat they call “Reverend.”
The women’s attire isn’t very appropriate to their needs. Their clothes
are tight, inhibit movement, and have only a few pleats in the back. They
leave the whole neck uncovered down to the shoulders. They cover their
chests with large silver-gilt pendants adorned with precious stones, but
these are so heavy that when the young women lean over even a little,
their bosoms are uncovered, evoking feelings of shame or forbidden de-
sires in [the men] who are present. They do not decorate their heads with
flowers or ribbons, but leave their hair to fall freely on their shoulders.
On the other hand, they wear a diadem of pure silk or silver, resembling
the aforementioned pendants. Married women wear a large black dress,
without pleats. They also wear long coats made of rabbit fur, without lin-
ing. They do not wear silk or fur hats, but cover their head with a bonnet
of red or white cotton. Further, the widows and old women cover their
head with a light veil of cotton.8

6  Aurel Decei, “Giovanandrea Gromo, Compendio di tutto il Regno posseduto dal Re Giovanni
Transilvano ed di tutte le cose notabili d’esso Regno (1564/67),” Apulum: Acta Musei Apulensis
2 (1943–1945): 181.
7  In this regard see the album of seventeenth century Transylvanian costumes preserved in
the University of Graz Library: Kostümbilder-Buch (Ms. II. 467). For catalogue description
and digitized images, see http://manuscripta.at/m1/hs_detail.php?ID=23528 (accessed
August 1, 2017). Likewise see the album published by the Hungarian National Museum in
Budapest, Costüme Bilder aus Siebenbürgen: Tabulae pictae et colorate (Budapest: Országos
Széchényi Könyvtár, 1905), the contents of which are summarized by M. Csaki, “Zwei
Trachtenbilderwerke im Besitze des Nationalmuseums in Budapest und des Herrn Baron L.
v. Rosenfeld in Wien,” Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für siebenbürgische Landeskunde 29,
no. 8–9 (August-September 1906), 122–123. For twentieth century costumes, see the splendid
album of Kurt Hielscher, Rumänien: Landschaft-Bauten-Volksleben (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus,
1933), 210–217.
8  Fröhlich, Medulla geographiae practicae, 370–371.
58 CHAPTER 3

The organization of the Transylvanian Saxons in the interior of the king-

dom of Hungary was also a model of medieval democracy. The judicial and
administrative dignitaries of the nine Stühle and the two districts (Brașov
and Bistriţa) were collectively called the Universitas Saxorum. The representa-
tives of the Stühle met once yearly on November 25 to discuss questions of
common interest. Their duties were as follows: annual payment of a fixed sum
to the royal treasury, on St. Martin’s Day; payment of the ecclesiastical tithe;
the obligation to provide a fixed number of soldiers to the royal army (com-
mutable with money payment); and the obligation to provide board and lodg-
ing to the king and voievod of Transylvania, and later for their ambassadors
and those of foreign countries. The king promised for his part not to grant es-
tates in Saxon territory to his nobles.
The Saxons were very attached to their privileges. With the passage of time
others accrued, such as—after the Turkish invasion of 1395—the right to forti-
fy their cities and village churches, which led to the development of an original
ecclesiastical architecture (Kirchenburgen9). Let us likewise note the commer-
cial privileges which made the fortunes of Brașov, Sibiu and Bistriţa, to which
we shall later return.
It was in this environment, so foreign to everything he would later come to
know, that Vlad Dracula was able to learn the value of solidarity, the strength
of community, and doubtless an egalitarian and civic spirit. But this latter was
mixed with a local chauvinism and open disdain for others, especially vis-à-vis
the Romanians, with whom he would have close dealings.

A Wallachian Adolescence

Dracula spent the major part of his adolescence in Wallachia, in conditions

very different from those of his childhood. His father’s ascent to the throne
coincided with Vlad’s transition from childhood (puer), to the next stage of
life (adulescens), where a young man leaves the society of women (mother,

9  Emil Sigerus, Siebenbürgisch-Sächsische Kirchenburgen: 52 Lichtdrucke mit Vorwort und er-

läuterndem Text, 5th rev. ed. (Hermannstadt: Drotleff, 1923); George Oprescu and Erhard
Daniel, Die Wehrkirchen in Siebenbürgen (Dresden: Sachsenverlag, 1961); Juliana Fabritius-
Dancu, Sächische Kirchenburgen in Siebenbürgen, 2nd rev. ed. (Sibiu: Zeitschrift Transilvania,
1983); Hermann Fabini and Karin Wieckhorst, Kirchenburgen in Siebenbürgen: Abbild und
Selbstdarstellung siebenbürgisch-sächsischer Dorfgemeinschaften, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Koehler
und Amelang, 1991); and Fabini’s Atlas der siebenbürgisch-sächsischen Kirchenburgen und
Dorfkirchen, 2 vols. (Sibiu: Monumenta, and Heidelberg: Arbeitskreis für Siebenbürgische
Landeskunde, 1999).
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 59

nurses, servants) and enters that of men. For Vlad, this change came about at
the moment his mother disappeared (or when his parents were separated),
which might have inflicted a psychological trauma. The loss of contact with his
mother could explain certain basic character traits, such as his hardness and
insensitivity to the suffering of others, and especially the terrible tortures
and punishments he reserved for women, children, and infants. Whatever the
case, the presence of a stepmother at his father’s side—a Moldavian princess
(Marina?), who would in turn produce two children, Radu and Alexandra—
must have hastened Vlad Dracula’s entry into the world of men.
The first step typically taken at this stage was to choose a tutor or “gover-
nor,” generally an elderly lord, with experience and authority. The latter had
to oversee the adolescent’s education, finding him teachers and masters for
the various subjects he would need to study. The name of Vlad’s tutor has not
come down to us. Nor are we much better informed about his brother Mircea’s
tutor, although we caught a glimpse of him in the previous chapter. He was a
boyar aged “a good eighty years” in 1445, who had served under Enguerrand de
Coucy, Marshal of France, during the crusade of Nicopolis in 1396. According
to Walerand de Wavrin, who met the old boyar likewise at Nicopolis in 1445:

He also said that, at that time, he was a servant of the Lord of Coucy, who
always retained a following of high-born Vlachs who knew the strategic
sites of Turkey. The governor praised the Lord of Coucy highly, saying
that, on the day before the battle, he had fallen upon a good 6,000 Turks
who had come with the intention of surprising the Christian foragers.10

Taken prisoner by the Turks, he had been sold in the Genoese markets and
learned Italian, or rather the lingua franca of Levant, which would thus allow
him to converse with de Wavrin without an interpreter. One might suppose
that the old governor had gotten about the Levant for some years before recov-
ering his freedom and returning to his country. Indeed, in 1396, the Genoese
had trading posts all around the Black Sea, from Caffa in the Crimea to
Trebizond and Pera (opposite Constantinople) and Chios. Since no Romanian
slave has been recorded in Genoa between 1381 and 1408 (there were only eight
Bulgarians and one Hungarian11), it seems that our man had stayed in Pera or
in another Genoese colony of the Black Sea.

10  De Wavrin, trans. Imber, 160. For the original French, see ed. Iorga, 83.
11  Michel Balard, La Romanie génoise: XII e–début XV e siècle, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia
Patria, nuova serie, vol. 18 (92), fasc. 2 = Bibliothèque des Écoles franc̦aises d’Athènes et
de Rome, vol. 235 (Genoa: Società Ligure di Storia Patria, and Rome: École franc̦aise de
Rome, 1978), 800, 817.
60 CHAPTER 3

In the absence of information to the contrary, we suppose that Mircea

and Vlad, born only a few years apart, had had the same governor in the
person of the old Wallachian lord whom Walerand de Wavrin encountered.
Furthermore, the function of governor of the voievod’s sons was not incom-
patible with an office at the princely court. We know, for example, that Nicolae
Pătraşcu, son of the Wallachian prince Michael the Brave (Mihail Viteazul,
1593–1601), had as his governor Adronic Cantacuzene (1553–1601), an impor-
tant Istanbul banker, who hailed from a fourteenth-century imperial family.12
Andronic, who had organized the financial arrangements enabling Michael
the Brave’s ascent to the throne, had taken refuge in Wallachia where he
held the offices of ban and grand treasurer. As regards Mircea and Vlad’s gov-
ernor, one wonders if he wasn’t quite simply Vlad Dracul’s “faithful servant”
Ioanăș Viteazul, who enjoyed the prince’s complete confidence during his stay
in Sighişoara.13 Viteaz, which today means “brave” in Romanian, originally had
the same sense as the Latin miles (professional soldier), which seems to apply
to our man. We may further note that the term is attested in Romanian since
1369. A certain Neagu Viteazul was sent by his prince to Mount Athos and
later returned to the Wallachian court, holding the office of comes agazonum
or praefectus stabuli.14 In Moldavia we likewise find more than one “viteaz” in
the members of the princely council in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth
century, all being the prince’s companions in arms. Prince Stephen the Great
of Moldavia (1457–1504) even established some vitezi (plural of viteaz) on the
battle field, after a victory. As had Dracula, for that matter.
The governor had complete responsibility for the princely children, which
he shared with various teachers (arms, horsemanship, etc.). In the Germanic
world, the emphasis was placed on training and acquisition of physical arts
called Die sieben Behendigkeiten [The Seven Nimble Arts]—namely horse-
manship, swimming, handling of arms, shooting, wrestling, the art of courtly
manners, and the tournament.15 One might suppose that Vlad Dracul, who

12  Documente, vol. 4, pt. 2, no. XXIII, p. 30; also see Matei Cazacu, “Stratégies matrimoniales
et politiques des Cantacuzène de la Turcocratie (XV e–XVIe siècles),” Revue des études rou-
maines 19–20 (1995–1996): 175–179. Reprinted in Cazacu, Au carrefour des Empires et des
mers, 443–465. Citation here is to the 1995–1996 publication.
13  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. XXXVIII, p. 61; no. XLIII, p. 65.
14  Lemerle, ed., Actes de Kutlumus, no. 29, p. 113; no. 30, p. 119. Petre Ș. Năsturel, Le Mont Athos
et les Roumains: Recherches sur leurs relations du milieu du XIV e siècle à 1654, Orientalia
Christiana Analecta, vol. 227 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum Orientalium 1986),
44–45.
15  Constantin Kiriţescu, Palestrica: O istorie universală a culturii fizice. Origini, evoluţie,
concepţii, metode, probleme, împliniri [Palestrica: a universal history of physical culture.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 61

himself had received this type of education at Sigismund of Luxemburg’s

court, would have wished his sons to be taught these same skills, even if the
Romanian world had its own customs.
Horsemanship was surely the first discipline taught, the horse being the uni-
versal means of transportation at this time, the faithful companion of soldiers,
and the best possible draught animal. Horses were not very widespread among
the Transylvanian Saxons. The Romanians, in contrast, were passionate about
raising and training them. Vlad Dracul had even offered two horses to King
Vladislav before the Varna campaign. The gentle and obedient gelded horse is
called “hongre” in French and “Wallach” [Vlach] in German, a sure indication
of its geographic origin. The two Romanian states of Wallachia and Moldavia
had been founded through a conquest known in Romanian as descălecat [dis-
mount from a horse], a term derived from the late Latin de-ex-caballicare,
dis-caballicare. Whenever a Hungarian king acceeded to the throne, every
Wallachian household was obliged to offer a horse. Similarly the “horse tax” or
“horse gift” was a tax which free men and boyars paid to the prince, when they
purchased land. Small and shaggy, the Wallachian and Moldavian horses were
not very impressive at first glance. However, they were sturdy, easy to mount,
and satisfied with minimal feed. The princes and great boyars also, it would
seem, had parade horses of Turkish and Arabic stock in their stables. Warriors,
however, always preferred mounts from their country for combat.
As we have already seen, in the campaigns led by János Hunyadi, the forces
sent by the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia consisted of archers on horse-
back. This light cavalry was indeed the only force capable of fighting the Turks
on an equal footing, precisely as before vis-à-vis the Mongols. Already in an-
tiquity, the arrows of the Dacians—ancestors of the Romanians—were feared
as much as those unleashed by the Parthians, galloping at top speed. The pre-
ferred bow of Romanian warriors was the composite reflex bow, a weapon de-
veloped by the Mongols and adopted by the Romanians in the Middle Ages.16
In 1445, Walerand de Wavrin admired the maneuvers of the Wallachian horse-
men who followed the crusader fleet on the Danube, and was likewise deeply
impressed by the loud cries they used to summon back scattered horses. It is
known, finally, that Vlad Dracula was a horseman without peer. In 1462, at the
head of his mounted troops, he attacked sultan Mehmed II’s camp by night
and inflicted heavy losses.

Origins, evolution, concepts, methods, problems, achievements] (Bucharest: Editura

Uniunii de Cultură și Sport, 1964).
16  
Ilona Bede, “Arc composite,” in Les Barbares, ed. Bruno Dumézil (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 2016), 218–219.
62 CHAPTER 3

Training in horsemanship at the Wallachian court included practice in

jousting, the equivalent Romanian term being harţa, which is cognate to the
French word “harcèlement.” A seventeenth-century Romanian describes a
joust of boyars, unfolding before their servants’ eyes, as follows:

It begins then on horseback,

The harţa at full speed gallop,
Swords clashing,
Lances spinning,
Masses of arms clanking,
And the screaming mouths.17

At some unclear date, but before the middle of the sixteenth century, the
Turkish game of gerid (halca, in Romanian) had been introduced, which in-
volved aiming a lance at a ring at full gallop. But typically these sorts of enter-
tainments were not commonplace in the Romanian countries. Nonetheless,
it is attested that in 1412 Romanian horsemen participated in a tournament
held by Sigismund of Luxemburg in Buda. Let us note, finally, that in a tomb
very credibly considered to be Vlad Dracula’s, there were found a tournament
crown, and a woman’s ring still attached to a coat sleeve, which specialists have
identified as a tournament ring.
To what extent were the Wallachian princes, in these times, tutored in more
academic subjects? Judging from literary evidence, one might conclude that
Vlad Dracula was unable to write, and at most could read. No letter composed
by him has survived. Likewise we have no autograph signature or monogram.
The first known autograph signature of a Wallachian prince dates to 1534,
but it is very likely that Prince Vlad the Monk (1482–1495), illegitimate son of
Vlad Dracul, knew how to read and write, having at one time been a monk.
In this period, Slavonic was the language of religion and culture, the equiv-
alent of Latin and Greek. It was used in the Wallachian princes’ documents
and correspondence until the seventeenth century, as it was among the Serbs,
Bulgarians, Russians, and Ukrainians. Correspondence with the Saxon cities
in Transylvania was sometimes conducted in Latin. But did Dracula speak any
of these languages? Here we can only confidently accept that Dracula must
have mastered Turkish, acquired during his enforced sojourn in the Ottoman
Empire. The rest is simply speculation.

17  Anton Balotă, “Geneza și evoluţia baladei lui Radu Calomfirescu [Genesis and evolution
of the ballad of Radu Calomfirescu],” Limbă și literatură 12 (1966): 419ff.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 63

As for their possible religious studies, these must have been limited to basic
rudiments of Orthodox theology and political ideology—such as the majesty
of the royal office, election by the grace of God, and the virtues of unction with
myrrh (holy chrism).
Concerning their training in statecraft and politics, the young princes
must have observed court ceremonial, the preponderant role played by the
boyars and the brutality of their conflicts, the precariousness of the throne,
and Wallachia’s mediocre power in comparison with Hungary and the
Ottoman Empire. In addition they heard the echoes of their father’s exile in
Transylvania, awaiting his opportunity to take the throne. And there was the
memory of their ancestors. Decorating the walls of his pious foundations was
the full length portrait of Mircea the Old, their paternal grandfather—dressed
in western fashion, with his royal crown and the double-headed eagles on his
costume, the “coat of arms” of the Palaiologan emperors of Constantinople.
The life and military achievements of this grandfather, who had died long be-
fore Vlad was born, must often have accompanied the young princes in their
studies—if indeed they had such. But times had changed and reigns as long
as those of Mircea (thirty-two years) or Alexander the Good of Moldavia, the
father of their step-mother, seemed now to belong to bygone days.

Hostage in Ottoman Territory (1444–1448)

At the end of 1444, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, Vlad Dracula came of age.
He was now a “young man” ( juvenis) who had reached majority, and he would
soon be immersed, involuntarily, into the third universe that would shape his
mentality—the world of Ottoman Asia Minor, and Adrianople in Europe. The
society he encountered here was unlike any other he had known. The clothing,
language, religion, and customs were all strange to him. He must immediately
have been struck by the veneration the sultan received from his subjects, who
considered themselves his slaves and who owed their status to him. At a simple
command from the sultan, the highest dignitaries of the court could fall into
disgrace, be exiled, suffer execution, or have their wealth confiscated—with-
out anyone daring to oppose. Court life and its ceremonial reflected this ven-
eration for the sultan, who was surrounded by a prodigious number of servants
and soldiers, like the famous janissaries reorganized by Murad II.
This lesson strongly influenced Vlad, who was more accustomed to
the preeminence of the great lords (jupanii) and their clans in the affairs
of the Wallachian state, and to their rebellious spirit, arrogant pride, and bru-
tality. And it is precisely in the relationship between this political class and
64 CHAPTER 3

the reigning voievods where we see the fundamental difference between Vlad
Dracula’s country and the Ottoman Empire. The instability of the Wallachian
throne since 1420—the successive changes of princes supported by different
factions of the nobility—sharply contrasts with the well-oiled machine of the
empire of the sultans. If these new men could attain important positions in
Wallachia thanks to their merits on the battlefield, the weight of the aristoc-
racy would remain predominant. This preeminence was due above all to the
economic and military power of the clans who owned vast landed estates.
Numbering five or six in all of Wallachia, these clans go back to the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries. They were, it is believed, the descendants of the
knezes and voievods who preceded the creation of the state. These clans had
succeeded in preserving their properties and increasing them through mar-
riage alliances, force or princely donations—this to the detriment of the free
peasants (moșneni, literally “inheritors, proprietors by heritage”), whose sig-
nificance in Wallachian society was diminishing. Furthermore, if a boyar was
convicted of a crime against his prince, his goods were confiscated but then
were returned to other members of his clan. A new prince could always revoke
previous confiscations, and customary oral law even stipulated that it was pro-
hibited for princes to sell the villages of boyars.18
The Muslims’ deep religiosity, their simple morals, and their love of justice
could not have failed to arouse Dracula’s curiosity. At the sultan’s court, where
he lived for at least a year, he could observe the extraordinary variety of na-
tionalities which formed the Commander of the Faithful’s entourage. Nobles
from great Turkish families of Anatolia mingled with renegade Greeks, Serbs,
and Albanians, and with Arabs, Africans, Italians and Persians, and so on. The
Turks’ love of war, their horses, and their God created a special atmosphere, al-
most heroic. The Empire had conquered such a massive number of territories
and peoples, and its resources were so vast, its organization and operation so
well-honed, that it was difficult to imagine them defeated or even stymied. And
indeed, the sultans seemed to have at their disposal, especially in Asia, an inex-
haustible supply of manpower. Cities, crafts, and trade prospered luxuriantly,
and peasants had a much better lot than in Christian lands. Even the Christian
subjects called dhimmi (“protected non-Muslims”) wouldn’t remotely consider
renouncing their lives on the sultan’s land.
Also, and contrary to certain fixed opinions, the Turks did not compel
Christians to convert. One could remain a Christian and enjoy the confidence

18  Ion Donat, Domeniul domnesc în Ţara Românească, sec. XIV–XVI. [The Princely domain
in Wallachia, fourteenth-sixteenth century], ed. Gheorghe Lazăr, Colecția “Biblioteca
enciclopedică de istorie a României” (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 1996), 101.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 65

of the sultan and his high officials. Such was the case with many Greeks and
Italians, who have documented this in their writings.
We may assume that at the end of 1447, when Vlad Dracul had concluded
his peace with the sultan, his children were transferred from Eğrigöz to Murad
II’s court. Vlad Dracula and his half-brother Radu could then observe the
extraordinary complexity of the Ottoman state. George of Hungary, who lived
in Turkey from 1438 to 1458, depicts the pool of young people variously assem-
bled at the sultan’s course as including prisoners of war, children of Christians
who were “picked” (this is the literal sense of the Turkish term devșirme) to
become janissaries, hostages of tributary countries, and so forth:

From among these highest ranking servants, some—according to the

qualities they’ve demonstrated—are appointed to the very highest offic-
es of the empire. The result of this is that all the dignitaries and princes
of the empire are in some way functionaries appointed by the sultan, and
[are not] lords or landowners. Consequently the sultan is the only lord
and the sole proprietor, who can, throughout the entire empire, dispense,
distribute, and administer properties, so that the others are but executive
organs, functionaries and administrators who follow his will and orders
[…]. This is why in his empire, even though the population is massive,
neither opposition nor resistance is possible. Quite to the contrary. With
total solidarity as if they were one single person, everyone fully conforms
and submits to the power of one man, whom they serve indefatigably, and
no one dares to do anything without his authorization. But if someone
dares to launch forth, on his own authority, on some enterprise whether
of large or small scale, he is for that stripped of his functions, expelled
from court, and returned to his previous status—if not subjected to a
more grievous punishment. In such a case, the sultan could, however he
so wished, kill him, send him to prison, sell him, or reduce him to slavery,
with no regard whatsoever for his rank or stature.19

19  George of Hungary, ed. and trans. Klockow, 212/214 [Latin], 213/215 [German]; trans.
Schnapp, 76–77. According to a contemporary Greek historian, Michael Kritoboulos of
Imbros, after János Hunyadi had Vlad Dracul put to death, Vlad and his brother had been
received by Murad II and “[he] welcomed these two fugitives who fled to him. He very
nobly nourished them in the palace while they were yet young boys …” (trans. Riggs, 78).
For the original Greek, see ed. Reinsch, IV, 10,2, p. 166, or less satisfactorily ed. and trans.
Grecu, pp. 290 [Romanian]/291 [Greek].
66 CHAPTER 3

Clearly Vlad was profoundly affected by this open and dynamic society, a
veritable meritocracy in the service of a single monarch. He evidently ana-
lyzed its functioning and tried to apply it to Wallachia in the course of his
long reign, from 1456–1462. Hence the “revolution” which his contemporary
Chalkokondyles would detect in his deeds.

Dracula’s First Reign (1448)

Let us now attempt to clarify the circumstances under which Vlad took the
throne of Wallachia for the first time, in 1448. In early September, János
Hunyadi’s army had crossed the Danube at Cuvin (Keve), opposite Smederevo,
and was proceeding directly south to meet up with Skanderbeg’s Albanian
troops. Prior to this, in August, a force of 1,500 horsemen and foot soldiers led
by Hunyadi’s brother-in-law Michael Szilágyi had launched a diversionary at-
tack on the Turkish fortress of Vidin. Refusing to fight, the Turks regrouped the
three frontier beys’ forces and pillaged Wallachia. Szilágyi caught up with them
and, with the help of Vladislav II, the prince of Wallachia, captured 3,000 men
including the bey of Vidin.20 After this encounter, which the Ottoman chron-
icles present as a victory, the crusader army continued its campaign. When it
reached Kosovo Polje, however, its return route had been blocked by the Turks,

20  See the letter of the Ragusan Pasquale de Sorgo dated September 11, 1448, written in
the Hungarian camp at Subotica, on the Morava River. The original, preserved in the
Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina in Rome, has been published three times: Micha
Kostić, “Opis vojske Jovana Hunjadija pri polasku u boj na Kosovo [Description of the
army of János Hunyadi before its departure for the Battle of Kosovo],” Glasnik Skopskog
naučnog društva 1 (1925): 79–91; Iorga, “Du nouveau sur la campagne turque de Jean
Hunyadi en 1448,” 13–27; and Aurel Decei, “Oastea lui Iancu Huniade înainte de bătălia de
la Kosovo (1448): Scrisoarea lui Pasquale de Sorgo [János Hunyadi’s army before the battle
of Kosovo (1448): the letter of Pasquale de Sorgo],” Revista istorică română 16, no. 4 (1946):
40–50, who was unaware of Iorga’s article. For an English translation with recent bibli-
ography, see Mark Whelan, “Pasquale de Sorgo and the Second Battle of Kosovo (1448):
A Translation,” Slavonic and East European Review 94, no. 1 (2016): 126–145. Pasquale de
Sorgo seems to have been the intermediary who negotiated the peace treaty between
Vlad Dracul and Murad II in 1447. And it was probably to De Sorgo that the Florentine
Domenico di Giovanni, better known as Burchiello (1404–1449), refers in his sonnet: “Frati
in cucina, et poponesse in sacchi, / E Gajo Lelio loro imbasciatore, / Una lanterna piena
di favore / Portavan per tributo de Valacchi” (Sonetti del Burchiello, del Bellincioni e d’altri
poeti fiorentini alla Burchiellesca [Londra (i.e. Lucca e Pisa), 1757], 28). Other versions have
the form “Un uomo da cucina, un uomo da sacchi.” Gaius Lelius is synonomous with an
empty and bombastic orator.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 67

allied with the Serbian despot George Branković, who opposed the crusaders’
venture. Defeated in a battle fought October 17–19, Hunyadi took to flight, and
Vladislav II with his 4,000 horsemen began a long and difficult retreat. In his
absence, Wallachia was militarily depleted and exposed to Turkish interven-
tion. This was the moment Dracula chose to cross the Danube, at the head of
an expeditionary corps provided by the sultan, to take over the capital and the
throne of Wallachia.
An anonymous letter from Constantinople, which was then still Byzantine,
possibly written by Bartholomaeus de Giano, Vicar of the Order of Friars Minor,
reported the event in this way:

About twenty days after the battle, the Grand Turk gave approximate-
ly 30,000 Turks to one of his admirals, who was the son of the Lord of
Wallachia and is a bad Christian [i.e., Orthodox], so that this son of the
Vlach Lord could go off to Wallachia to conquer it by force and make
himself its Lord, and subject it to obedience to the Turk.21

The anonymous Ottoman chronicle Tevārih-i āl-i Osmān situates this event
in 1449:

The following year [after the Battle of Kosovo], setting forth on a new
[campaign], he [Murad II] had the fortress of Giurgiu constructed. From
there he launched incursions into Wallachia and placed there as prince
“The Impaler,” son of Dracul, and gave him a flag and a hilat [ceremonial
robe], and accorded him all sorts of favors. Then he sent him with the
akıncılar, who went off to install the prince in place of his father.22

In reality, Vlad had arrived in Wallachia faster than contemporaries believed.

On October 31, he addressed a letter to the mayor and senators of Brașov, re-
sponding to a message sent by a Hungarian dignitary from Transylvania. By

21  
B NF, Paris, ms. fr. 1278, ff. 138–139; published by Iorga, “Les Aventures ‘sarrazines’ des
Franc̦ais de Bourgogne au XV e siècle,” 38–41, with quotation on p. 40. This information
had been recorded by the chronicler Mathieu d’Escouchy, who understood the expres-
sion “bad Christian [crestyen malvais]” in terms of Vlad’s conversion to Islam (“qui s’estoit
rendu de sa loy deux ans paravant [who departed from his law (faith) two years before]”).
Cf. Chronique de Mathieu d’Escouchy, ed. G. Du Fresne de Beaucourt, new ed., vol. 1 (Paris:
Mme Ve J. Renouard, 1863), 141–142.
22  
Tevārih-i āl-i Osmān, trans. Giese, 98. For the original Ottoman with facing German trans-
lation, see Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, 148 [Ottoman]/149 [German]. Romanian transla-
tion in Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 185.
68 CHAPTER 3

this time Vlad Dracula had occupied the throne of Târgoviște for one or two
weeks. This text fully conveys the ambiguity of his situation:

Prudent and honest men, brothers, and friends, [who are] sincerely be-
loved by us.
We inform you that the noble lord Nicholas of Vizakna [Ocna Sibiului,
Salzburg] has written to us, inviting us to come to him in advance of
the magnificent John [i.e., János Hunyadi], Governor of the Kingdom
of Hungary, returning from the war. We are unable to accede to his re-
quest because last Tuesday [October 29] the brother of the naib [i.e.,
deputy judge] of Nicopolis came to us and stated with certainty that
Murad, the Lord of the Turks, fought continuously for three days with
Lord John the Governor, and on the last day [John] enclosed [his forces]
within a wagon fort [Wagenburg]. And the Emperor [i.e., sultan] himself
dismounted his horse amidst the janissaries and attacked and killed all
those they found outside and inside the wagon fort. If we come to him
[i.e., Nicolas of Vizakna] now, the Turks could summarily kill both us and
you. Thus, we pray that you stay calm, and be patient until we learn Lord
John’s fate. There are doubts that he is alive, but if he has escaped unim-
peded from the war, we shall meet with him and make a good peace. But
if now you are opposed to us, and something should happen, it would be
to the detriment of your souls, and you will answer to God for the danger
[incurred].
Given at Târgoviște on the eve of All Saints’ Day, in the year of the Lord
[14]48.
Vlad, voievod of the Transalpine lands [i.e., Wallachia], your brother
in all.23

This letter is a model of prevarication. In point of fact, Nicholas of Ocna

Sibiului’s invitation to come to Transylvania was a ruse to trap the Wallachian
prince.24 Nicholas was loyal to János Hunyadi and his offer could hardly

23  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLV, pp. 314–315, and also DRH D,
vol. 1, no. 293, pp. 402–403, but with errors in the Romanian translation (carried over into
Treptow’s English translation, Vlad III Dracula, 179–80).
24  On Nicolas, see Lidia Carmen Gross, “Nicolae Senior de Ocna Sibiului, vicevoievod al
Transilvaniei (Aspecte genealogice) [Nicolas lord of Ocna-Sibiului, vice-voievod of
Transylvania (Genealogical Aspects)],” in Transilvania (sec. XIII–XVII): Studii istorice
[Transylvania (13th–17th century): historical studies], ed. Susana Andea (Bucharest:
Editura Academiei Române, 2005), 126–138.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 69

conceal the intended ambush. Vlad clearly was not duped, but pretended to
take the proposal seriously, declaring he would wait for further information on
János Hunyadi, whom some believed to be dead. On the other hand, his close
relations with the Ottomans are evident, since he received his information on
the Battle of Kosovopolje from the brother of the naib of Nicopolis.
In this year 1448, it is unclear who was supporting Vlad in Wallachia. The
great lords of the country were released from their oaths of loyalty to Vlad
Dracul following his death (December 1447), and the following year they joined
in supporting Vladislav II.
Dracula’s first reign was very brief. On December 7 it was learned at
Constantinople that the pretender had been defeated and even put to death by
János Hunyadi. These various claims are incorrect, however, because Hunyadi
did not recover his freedom until Christmas of 1448.25 It was thus Vladislav II,
upon his return from Kosovo Polje, who ejected Dracula from Wallachia to-
wards the end of November. Forced yet again into exile, he found refuge in
Moldavia.

Exile in Moldavia

Since 1432, this second Romanian country had experienced the same sort of
troubles and civil wars as Wallachia. Its name derived from the river Moldova
(in German Moldau), which flows in the northern part of the country, where its
first capital was established. In contrast to Wallachia, which consists of three
regions, Moldavia has only two—the upper part (Ţara de sus) in the north, and
the lower part (Ţara de jos) in the south. Originally, these two principalities were
also called Wallachia, the land of the Romanians. To distinguish them from
the other Romanian state, however, additional names emerged—Rossovlachia
(Wallachia neighboring Russia) and Mavrovlachia (Black Wallachia, in the
north), which became Little Wallachia. In the fourteenth century, the term
Moldavia referred to the little principality in the north. By the end of this same
century, it designated jointly the upper and lower parts of the region.
A vassal of Hungary, Moldavia recovered its independence in 1359, thanks
to the revolt of Prince Bogdan, a Romanian voievod originally from neighbor-
ing Maramureș, who occupied the throne and gave his name to the reigning

25  Konstantin Jireček, Geschichte der Serben, vol. 2, 1371–1537, Geschichte der europäischen
Staaten, eds. Arnold H. L. Heeren et al. (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1918), 192.
See also Joseph Held, Hunyadi: Legend and Reality, East European Monographs, no. 178
(Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 1985), 134.
70 CHAPTER 3

dynasty. This independence was short-lived, since in 1370 Louis of Anjou, king
of Hungary, was also elected king of Poland, Hungary’s neighbor to the north.
In 1386, Poland’s union with Lithuania, Moldavia’s neighbor to the east, con-
vinced prince Peter I to swear fealty, the following year, to Vladislav Jagiello,
king of Poland-Lithuania. Upper and lower Moldavia were finally united
around 1390–1391, and consequently extended to the Black Sea coast. Despite
Sigismund of Luxemburg’s efforts to bring the region back into the Hungarian
orbit, Moldavia remained a vassal of Poland for several centuries.
The long reign of Alexander the Good (1400–1432), contemporary and pro-
tégé of Mircea the Old, voievod of Wallachia, allowed Moldavia to play an im-
portant role in Eastern Europe. The trade route linking China and Persia with
Poland, via the Black Sea, crossed through Moldavia from south to north and
brought it great prosperity. Parallel to this, there was an important dynamic
of exchange between Moldavia and Transylvania, owing in particular to the
Saxon cities of Bistriţa in the north, and Brașov in the south. With Cetatea
Albă (Maurokastron [Gk.], Moncastro [Ital.], Akkerman [Tk.]) at the mouth of
the river Nistru (Dniester) in the Black Sea, and Kilia, occupied around 1428,
Moldavia possessed two great emporia of international commerce and assert-
ed itself as a Pontic power. By this point the country had reached its maximum
size—93,000 square kilometers, much larger than Wallachia—, and extended
from the eastern Carpathians to the Dniester, and the Black Sea to the frontiers
of Galicia.
In 1420, the appearance of the Ottomans took Moldavia by surprise. Twelve
years later, Alexander the Good’s death signaled the end of Moldavia’s era of
flourishing growth. For a quarter of a century (1432–1457), his sons and grand-
sons disputed the throne with unprecedented violence. In 1433, Ilie, a legiti-
mate son of Alexander, had the mother of his half-brother Stephen drowned.
The latter was Ilie’s co-ruler, whom Ilie had unsuccessfully tried to capture.
Nine years later, it was Stephen’s turn, and he gouged out the eyes of his
mother’s murderer. The spiral of violence continued in 1447, when Ilie’s son
Roman II decapitated Stephen to avenge his father. A year later, Roman in turn
was poisoned and died.26
In spring 1448, János Hunyadi intervened in Moldavian affairs to put an end
to this instability, instating prince Peter II as the head of the state. The latter

26  In 1451, Peter Aron, illegitimate son of Alexander the Good, had his cousin Bogdan II de-
capitated, and then he in turn was decapitated by Stephen the Great, son of Bogdan II,
sixteen years later (December, 1467). In 1490, Stephen had a church built on the very place
where his father had been killed, which still exists in Vaslui, and is called “The Beheading
of St. John the Baptist Church.” Finally, prince Alexander will be poisoned in 1455, though
he hadn’t even reached his seventeenth year.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 71

had sought refuge with Hunyadi, fearing to be assassinated by his associate

co-ruler. This action fit into Hunyadi’s plan of ensuring the loyalty of the two
trans-Carpathian Romanian lands, in preparation for the campaign he was or-
ganizing against the Turks.27
Installed on the throne in March, Peter III was soon rid of his rival, who died
from poisoning in July. However, his own reign was short-lived. He disappeared
shortly after, on October 10, 1448—of sickness or poisoning!—which explains
his non-participation in the battle of Kosovo Polje. He was followed by the ten
year old Alexander (or Alexăndrel), a son of Ilie, who had spent most of his
life exiled in Poland, and who, on his mother’s side, was a cousin of the Polish
king Casimir IV. It was to this young prince that Vlad turned in November-
December 1448, after he was driven out from Wallachia. Perhaps Vlad Dracul’s
second wife, who was Alexander’s aunt, was residing at court along with her
daughter Alexandra. In any case, Vlad was able to find asylum in Moldavia for
three years, even after a new prince expelled Alexander from the throne in
October 1449. Bogdan II (1449–1451) was the son of the jupan Bogdan, brother
of Alexander the Good. Unlike Alexander, who was supported by the Polish
king, Bogdan II enjoyed the support of János Hunyadi, with whom he had
concluded a treaty of fealty and alliance on February 11, 1450. He promised to
behave towards the governor of Hungary “as a son towards his beloved father,”
with his country needing “to be one with the country of His Lordship.” The new
prince promised to his suzerain counsel, military aid, the right of asylum, etc.28
The terms of this treaty represent a novelty in the diplomatic conduct
between Moldavia and Hungary, and doubtless bear the hallmark of János
Hunyadi’s energetic personality. This likewise represents a break with the
Moldavian princes’ traditional policy of wisely opting for vassalage to Poland
to protect themselves from the heavy weight of Hungarian tutelage, and the
Catholic proselytizing it encouraged.
On bad terms with Hunyadi, the king of Poland could not accept this defi-
ance. A Polish army attached Moldavia on two occasions, but suffered severe
defeats in March and September of 1450.29 We can imagine that Vlad Dracula

27  Pall, “Autour de la croisade de Varna,” 98; Constantin Rezachevici, Cronologia critică a
domnilor din Ţara Românească și Moldova, 1324–1881 [Critical chronology of the princes
of Wallachia and Moldavia, 1324–1881], vol. 1, Secolele XIV–XVI [14th and 15th centuries]
(Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2001), 505–513.
28  Text of the treaty in Costăchescu, ed., Documente moldovenești înainte de Ștefan cel Mare,
vol. 2, no. 220, pp. 749–753.
29  Emanuel Constantin Antoche, “L’Expédition polonaise de 1450 en Moldavie et la bataille
de la petite rivière de Crasna (Izvorul Crasnei, 6 septembre 1450: A la mémoire de Leon
Șimanschi (1938–2005),” Rocznik Przemyski, Historia Wojskowości 49/1 (2013): 3–24.
72 CHAPTER 3

himself participated in these confrontations, and that he formed a certain

friendship with Bogdan II’s son Stephen, who was younger than Vlad since he
was born around 1438. In 1457, Vlad would in turn help him by providing an
army and diplomatic support to retake the Moldavian throne. The military ex-
perience Dracula gained in those struggles in 1450 must later have served him
well. This was the first time he waged war against a western army, which was
comprised essentially of heavy cavalry troops and protected by Hussite style
battle wagons.
Where force had failed, a ruse succeeded. On October 15, 1451, Bogdan II was
celebrating a wedding, but in the middle of the night was pulled out of bed
and decapitated by a small force commanded by Peter Aron, pretender to the
throne supported by the Poles. The Moldavian dynasty now registered its fifth
assassination in fifteen years! After the crime, Bogdan II’s widow and her chil-
dren took refuge in Transylvania, to place themselves under János Hunyadi’s
protection. Vlad accompanied them, but lacked the strength to present him-
self before his father’s assassin. Instead, he probably established himself in
Sighișoara or Brașov, cities where his father had formerly been appreciated.
János Hunyadi seemed inclined to tolerate Dracula taking refuge in
Transylvania, doubtless fearing lest he go seek protection from the Turks. This
was not, however, an opportune moment for Vlad to turn to the Turks. The new
sultan, soon to be memorialized as “Mehmed the Conqueror,” was the son and
successor of Murad II, who died February 9, 1451. Mehmed was preparing to be-
siege Constantinople and needed to conclude peace with Venice and Hungary.
Thus, on November 20, 1451, he signed a three year truce with Hungary. The
treaty also included terms for Wallachia and its prince:

And Vladislav, the prince of the Vlachs, must pay and give to My Lordship
that for which he is liable, the tribute or any other service. And likewise,
he owes the kingdom of Hungary or its governor solicitude, obedience,
and various obligations. And if he satisfies the two parties, he will reign
in peace; and, if he does not pay what is owed [the speaking voice here is
Mehmed II] to me or your Lordship the Governor, and even to the lords
of Hungary, each party can put pressure on him and oblige him to respect
the peace. And this will not be considered a violation of the peace. And
this Vladislav, who is now the prince of the Vlachs, will reign until the end
of this truce. If it comes to pass that Vladislav dies during this period of
peace, neither party has liberty to nominate the next prince of Wallachia
other than the one which the country has chosen. And he who then shall
be prince shall remain in that state through the above-specified term.30

30  Iorga, ed., Acte și fragmente, vol. 3, p. 25.

First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 73

In a letter dated February 6, 1452, stating to the authorities in Brașov that he

had agreed not to harm Vladislav II in any way, János Hunyadi clarifies:

Thus, we will not permit ourselves to send an army of this kingdom of

Hungary against the voievod Vladislav, and if possible we will not under-
take anything against him. Because now, according to our information,
the illustrious prince Vlad, son of the late voievod Dracul, who is pres-
ently among you, is probably proposing to attack this voievod Vladslav
without our knowledge and against our wishes.
This is why, if the aforementioned Vlad wishes to pass through this re-
gion against the previously mentioned Vladislav in order to destroy him
and the said country of Wallachia, then we hereby put you on notice and
order you to forcefully deny Vlad accommodation or shelter, and pref-
erably to capture him or pursue him. […] And because the aforemen-
tioned Vlad will come to Moldavia under our protection, we wish for
him to be taken safe and sound by the same route by our men under our
protection.31

The decision to return Vlad to Moldavia was no doubt connected with the re-
gime change that took place there in February. Alexander once again enjoyed
the Polish king’s support, whose troops easily expelled Peter Aron, who took
refuge in Transylvania. The young prince quickly normalized his relations with
the city of Brașov, with whom he renewed the commercial privileges accorded
them by his grandfather Alexander the Good (August 12, 1452), and also com-
menced negotiations along the same line with Hunyadi. On February 16, 1453,
he concluded with the latter a treaty of “eternal peace,” even agreeing to marry
a niece of his protector.32
Ignorant of these developments in Moldavia, Vlad left Brașov and its re-
gion and headed west to leave Saxon territory. He had on his heels not only
Hunyadi’s men, but also the Saxons of Sibiu who had forbidden his sojourn
in their Stuhl. At Geoagiu, near Broos (Orăștie), two of Hunyadi’s agents at-
tempted an ambush which could have been fatal for Vlad. Five years later, Vlad
reminded the burghers of Sibiu of this incident, where he was nearly captured
and put to death “for the love of the Lord Voievod Vladislav.”33

31  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. LXIV, p. 37; Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 2767,
pp. 337–338.
32  Costăchescu, ed., Documente moldovenești înainte de Ștefan cel Mare, vol. 2, no. 224,
pp. 762–764.
33  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLIX, p. 319. Hunyadi’s two men were
Nicholas de Vizakna and János Geréb de Vingárt. Let us recall that the former was the
74 CHAPTER 3

At length, Vlad addressed Hunyadi directly, who offered to take him into his
service, but in a subordinate position which this son of voievod Vlad Dracul
refused. Irritated, Hunyadi had him expelled to Moldavia manu militari.34
This first contact between the two men was a failure, Vlad being too proud to
accept anything less than the paternal throne. Hunyadi, for his part, persevered
in respecting the peace he concluded with Mehmed II, and thus could not per-
mit Vlad to remain in Saxon Transylvania where he would most definitely have
threatened Vladislav II.
Thus it was that Vlad found himself yet again exiled in Moldavia. The
young prince Alexander was then ruling the land, under the tutelage of the
great boyars who thought poorly of his initiatives to Hunyadi and Hungary.
Alexander thus resigned himself to render homage likewise to the king of
Poland, on October 6, 1453, because the international situation had rapidly
deteriorated. On May 29, Mehmed had conquered Constantinople, and in
August he demanded tribute from Moldavia.35 In May 1454, the Polish repre-
sentative at the Diet of Regensburg could publicly announce that Wallachia
and Moldavia were sending the Turks annual tribute, and that the population
had to pay for it, following a census of all heads of households. Consequently,
the Polish envoy concluded, there no longer was any buffer between Poland
and the Turks—which was a particularly dangerous situation for the kingdom
since it was now at war with the Teutonic Order.36
Alexander’s position was seriously threatened by internal developments
in Hungary, where János Hunyadi had abandoned his title of governor (or re-
gent) of the kingdom, which he had held since 1446. Following the defeat at

vice-voievod of Transylvania in October 1448 when he invited Vlad, hardly installed on

the throne of Wallachia, to come and visit him. See above, p. 68.
34  As is evident from a letter, dated March 30, 1452, which Hunyadi wrote from Szakéllas, in
Hungary, to the burghers of Brașov: “And since the illustrious voievod Vlad, son of voievod
Dracul, who had sojourned here under our protection, did not like his situation on ac-
count of the weighty services demanded of him, we decided to have him depart. But not
to go in your region, but rather to Moldavia, because we do not desire that injuries be
caused to Wallachia from your adjacent territory” (Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5,
no. 2769, p. 339).
35  See the letter, dated September 10, 1453, which Cardinal Zbigniew Olesnicki wrote from
Krakow to Enea Silvio Piccolomini, then the bishop of Siena and future Pope Pius II:
“Because the Turk has occupied a large part of Europe, and the Greek empire, he has de-
manded a large tribute [gravia tributa] from the voievod of Moldavia, vassal of our king of
Poland, and from other princes” (Pius II, Letters, ed. Wolkan, 253). For further discussion
see Cazacu, “L’Impact ottoman,” 173ff.
36  Sokolowski and Szujski, eds., Codex epistolaris saeculi decimi quinti, 150–151.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 75

Kosovo, Hunyadi was captured and imprisoned by the Serbian despot George
Branković, who released Hunyadi on condition he make peace with himself
and the key Hungarian barons, including Ulrich of Cilli (Branković’s son-in-
law), Ladislas Gari, and Nicholas Újlaki. These barons imposed on Hunyadi
a veritable division of power, and forced him to negotiate with emperor
Frederick III the liberation of king Ladislas the Posthumous, whom the em-
peror persisted in keeping as his ward. Hunyadi secured from Frederick his
promise to release Ladislas when he reached the age of majority, which was
set at thirteen. Following this accord, in January 1453, Ladislas the Posthumous
became archduke of Austria and would be crowned king of Hungary the fol-
lowing month. János Hunyadi then gave up his functions as governor of the
kingdom, and Ladislas—after having congratulated him for re-establishing
Hungarian suzerainty over Wallachia and Moldavia—appointed him heredi-
tary count of Bistriţa, and captain of the province. A few months later, the king
organized a triumvirate to manage his possessions. Hunyadi was given respon-
sibility for Hungarian affairs, while Ulrich of Cilli and George Podiebrad were
appointed to deal, respectively, with Austria and Bohemia.37
As treasurer general of Hungary, János Hunyadi faced quite a challenge with
Vladislav II, his restless vassal in Wallachia, who intended to protect his sub-
jects suffering from the devaluations in the Hungarian coinage. In September-
October 1452, the latter inaugurated a new monetary policy and struck silver
coins that were heavier and richer in precious metal than the corresponding
Hungarian coins. In so doing, he intended to assert his independence vis-à-vis
his northern neighbor, and allowed his coinage to circulate on the Ottoman
market.
The Hungarians deciphered this move as a declaration of war. János
Hunyadi forbade the burghers of Brașov to accept Wallachian money and
Ottoman akc̦e (silver coins), and King Ladislas II confiscated from Vladislav II
his Transylvanian fiefs of Amlaș and Făgarăș. In August 1453, an opening clash
broke out, and then, in September 1455, János Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and
forced Vladislav II to accept the new, heavily devalued Hungarian money. The
voievod was unable, however, to recover his Transylvanian fiefs.38
Hunyadi’s hostile actions against the Wallachian prince did not contra-
vene the treaty of 1451, which had expired. The two parties had free hands in
their respective spheres of influence. Still in all, Hunyadi dared not intervene

37  See Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s letter to Cardinal Juan Carvajal, dated October 16, 1453
(Pius II, Letters, ed. Wolkan, 304). This decision was meant to address the Turkish threat.
See also Cazacu, “L’Impact ottoman,” 173ff.
38  Cazacu, “L’Impact ottoman,” 170–185.
76 CHAPTER 3

in Moldavia where Prince Peter Aron, restored to the throne, hastened to

swear an oath of loyalty to the Polish king, at the same time negotiating with
Mehmed II tribute payment, which the sultan fixed at 2,000 gold ducats
(October 5, 1455).

The Accord with János Hunyadi

The urgent priority now was a head-on collision with the sultan, who was as-
sembling his troops for a quick attack on Belgrade. During the Diet held in
spring 1456 at Buda, Vlad Dracula—who had returned from Moldavia at an
unknown date—was presented by Hunyadi to king Ladislas. He was now part
of an elite force, equipped with costly arms and composed of the captain gen-
eral’s trusted men, who “loved the Lord Count and didn’t fear endangering
their lives in the defense of his.”39
In the list of Hunyadi’s trusted magnates, Vlad was designated as voievod
of Wallachia, an indication that he not only had normalized relations with his
former enemy, but that he also was regarded as the future prince of his land. To
attain this goal, Dracula had sworn fealty to János Hunyadi and king Ladislas,
whose partisan his father had been in 1440.40
Hunyadi’s changed attitude to Dracula is explained by the annoyance
Vladislav II caused him, not only refusing to renounce his Transylvanian fiefs,
but going so far as to attack them.41 But Hunyadi’s priority at this time was not
to intervene in Wallachia. In April 1456, the Hungarian Diet convened to take
defensive measures against the Turkish danger, decreeing a general levy of the
army, and appealing to Pope Calixtus III to dispatch a fleet to the Dardanelles.
Vladislav II’s hostile actions intensified. En route to Belgrade, János Hunyadi

39  Thuróczy, ed. Schwandner, vol. 1, 268. As Gustav Gündisch has shown (citing the latter
1746 edition), this event should be dated to 1456 (and not 1453, as previously believed). See
his “Cu privire la relaţiile lui Vlad Ţepeș cu Transilvania în anii 1456–1458 [On Vlad Ţepeș’s
relations with Transylvania in the years 1456–1458],” Studii: Revistă de istorie 16 (1963): 683,
and note 6.
40  As Ladislas Hunyadi, János’ elder son, affirms in a letter dated December 7, 1456, to the
burghers of Brașov: “When Vlad, voievod of Wallachia, was exiled in our land, he prom-
ised on his faith many things to us and our lord the king” (Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1,
no. LXXXI, p. 46).
41  See on this János Hunyadi’s letters to the burghers of Brașov dated December 23, 1455 and
April 7, 1456, and King Ladislas’ letter to the burghers of Sibiu dated April 6, 1456. Ibid.,
nos. LXXIII, p. 42; LXXV, p. 43; LXXIV, pp. 42–43.
First Reign and New Exile ( 1448–1456 ) 77

asked the burghers of Sibiu to immediately provide him with forces to confront
the Turks, who had massed troops and war machines. King Ladislas followed
up this appeal with similar letters addressed to the Saxons of the seven Stühle,
which went unanswered since they feared, above all, prince Vladislav’s attacks
on Amlaș and Făgarăș. A week later, on July 3, when he was “face to face” with
the enemy, Hunyadi addressed a desperate appeal for aid to the burghers of
Brașov. In order to appease their fears, he announced that he had charged the
voievod Vlad to reside with them and organize their defense.42
It was probably Vlad himself who brought this letter to Brașov, where he
set himself up to carry out the same function that his father had performed,
twenty five years earlier. But Dracula was impatient. He had formed numerous
contacts with discontented Wallachian boyars who wished to be rid of their
prince. Their common desire was soon fulfilled. On August 11, János Hunyadi
died of plague which had struck the Turkish camp, and then spread to Christian
corpse robbers.
The news of Hunyadi’s death spread like wildfire. On his tomb in the Catholic
cathedral of Alba Iulia, in Transylvania, one can read the inscription “The light
of the world is extinguished.” But another light was now shining in the world,
namely Halley’s Comet, which appeared June 8, 1456 and remained visible in
the sky for the entire month. Vlad Dracula saw in this a favorable sign, and
even had an image of the comet placed on coins struck between 1456 and 1457
(figs. 13 and 14).43 Exploiting the general confusion, Vlad wasted no time, assem-
bled his men, crossed the Carpathians, and suddenly appeared in Wallachia.

42  Ibid., no. LXXXVII, p. 44. It’s important to remember that the majority of Hungarian mag-
nates refused to send troops for the defense of Belgrade, where János Hunyadi disposed
of only 4,000 horsemen and mobs of pilgrims aroused by John of Capistrano—who were
far from forming an army worthy of the name. See Franz Babinger’s discussion of num-
bers and the course of operations in his “Der Quellenwert der Berichte über den Entsatz
von Belgrad am 21./22. Juli 1456,” Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-
Historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, vol. 6 (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 1957), 1–69. Reprinted in Babinger’s Aufsätze und Abhandlungen zur
Geschichte Südosteuropas und der Levante, vol. 2, Südosteuropa-Schriften, vol. 8 (Munich:
Trofenik, Südosteuropa Verlagsgesellschaft, 1966), 263–310.
43  Octavian Iliescu, “Vlad L’Empaleur et le droit monétaire,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 18,
no. 1 (1979): 107–129, especially 125–127. Also his “Ducaţi necunoscuţi emiși de doi
voievozi ai Ţării Românești în secolul XV-lea [Unknown ducats minted by two voievods
of Wallachia in the 15th century],” Buletinul Societăţii numismatice române 77–79,
nos. 131–133 (1983–1985): 271ff. Iliescu notes that another comet appeared in 1457, namely
Torricelli II.
78 CHAPTER 3

This decision, taken in haste, owed everything to circumstances and chance.

A few months later, Vlad could write to the burghers of Brașov that “God
willing, we have attained our rule with nobody’s help.”44 And the future Pope
Pius II, echoing the general opinion, wrote that “Dragula’s [Dracul’s] other son
named John escaped the regent’s clutches and soon after, having gathered an
army, slew Ladislas [Vladislav], regained much of his paternal inheritance and
put to a cruel death all who had been opposed to himself and his father.”45
Disconcerted by this surprise invasion, Vladislav II resisted feebly and
was betrayed by his own followers. Pursued by the victor, he met his death
on August 20 in the little town of Târgsor, located fifty kilometers north of
Bucharest. What exactly transpired is unclear, but Vladislav was probably as-
sassinated on the orders of his own boyars—the same ones who had betrayed
him.46 A faithful follower, Neagoe of Craiova, transported his corpse to the
church of the monastery of Dealu, near Târgoviște, where it was buried. His
tombstone records the day he died, but is mistaken regarding the year. It was
set in place in 1512 by Neagoe’s four sons, high Wallachian dignitaries, when the
wooden church of Dealu was replaced by a superb construction in white stone.
The place chosen for this execution “by the saber,” as the official Wallachian
chronicle puts it, is troubling, since we know that Vladislav II had constructed
a princely church in that city. Would he have taken refuge in this sanctuary to
escape his pursuers? One thing is certain. Five years later, Vlad Dracula in turn
built a church in this same city, which was completed on the Feast of Saint
John the Baptist, June 24, 1461. Was he expressing repentance for the assassina-
tion of 1456? This casts a different ray of light on the psychology of our char-
acter, who now commenced his longest reign—the second—, but not the last.

44  “Adiuvante Deo, regno nostro sine adiutorio alterius obtento” (Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1,
no. LXXXII, p. 47.
45  Commentaries of Pius II, Books X–XIII, trans. Gragg, 738; for the Latin original, see ed.
Cazacu, 89. On the significance of Pius II’s reference to “John,” see below, p. 165.
46  Such, at least, is the accusation brought forth a few years by Basarab IV, a prince with little
favor for Vlad Dracula, being a cousin of Vladislav II. In a letter addressed to the burghers
of Brașov, this prince demands the extradition of a group of boyars who had served the
Turkish cause in various ways for twenty years, and who “made voievod Vlad come against
prince Vladislav and they killed him” (Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile,
no. CXXI, pp. 149–151.
 CHAPTER 4

The Reign (1456–1462)

The boyars and the population of Wallachia had great difficulty recognizing
Vlad when he made his appearance during the summer of 1456. He had left the
country twelve years previously, sent as a hostage to the Turks, and had only
reappeared briefly in the autumn of 1448. How could they know if he was truly
the son of voievod Vlad Dracul and not an imposter? The first to have recog-
nized him officially were some old boyars with, at their head, the jupan Manea
Udriște, active in the princely council since 1432; the chancellor Cazan, son of
Sahac, who was also in the princely council since 1431; then the old secretary
Linart (Leonard), a Saxon originating from Brașov who had served under four
princes. As for the old tutor, the soldier from the 1396 Crusade of Nicopolis, he
must have died. Who else then could recognize Vlad as the son of Dracul?

“Mark of Red Iron”

Aside from personal testimony, which could always be mistaken, there was—
both in Wallachia and Moldavia—a method of identifying a prince’s son con-
sidered to be infallible. The Saxon Georg Reicherstorffer, in works published in
1541 and 1550, provides us with this information:

And, since our history must record the entire truth, we add that legiti-
mate and illegitimate sons can reign [in Moldavia] without any differ-
ence. And, after a crown prince is born, he is marked [perhaps tattooed]
on his body with red iron, as a special sign so that when he reaches the
age of manhood, he can be recognized by this sign, without any doubt,
as a genuine son of the prince. The same thing happens, and indeed very
often, in Wallachia.1

1  Excerpt translated here from Holban, ed., Călători străini, vol. 1, 199, whose notes are very use-
ful for the textual history of Reicherstorffer’s treatise. The latter, entitled Moldaviae quae olim
Daciae pars, chorographia, was published in 1541 in Vienna (Excusum Viennae Pannoniae
per Ioannem Singrenium). Subsequently in 1550, and also in Vienna (Aegidius Aquila),
Reicherstorffer published Chorographia Transylvaniae, quae Dacia olim appellata aliarumque
provinciarum et regionum succincta descriptio et explication, in which Moldaviae quae olim
Daciae pars … was reproduced.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_005

80 CHAPTER 4

Thanks to these signs, the pretenders to the throne were recognized as sons of
the prince, even if they came from the most surprising backgrounds, like the
son of a Transylvanian Saxon butcher who reigned in Moldavia in the sixteenth
century. Unfortunately, no historic document clarifies what these signs were.
A historic ballad, relating events from the middle of the sixteenth century, de-
scribes how a son of a prince, who had become the owner of flocks of animals,
was recognized:

He found written [marked] on [his] belt,

A shaft of wheat,
And on his chest, when he looked,
What was found written thereupon?
The holy moon, the holy sun,
And on [his] two shoulders,
He found two stars of Venus.

In the end, these signs and an official document from the sultan, produced by
the mother of the suspected prince, established his identity.2
These princely signs were not unique to the dynasties of Wallachia and
Moldavia. Marc Bloch has noted the red cross (crois roial) which the royal chil-
dren of France bore on their right shoulder, and more rarely on the chest.3
Other examples abound from Germany, Austria, England, Georgia.4

2  Teodorescu, ed., Poesii populare române, 477. See comments of Vasile Bogrea, “Dobrișan,
fratele Mircii Vodă [Dobrișan, the brother of voievod Mircea],” Anuarul Institutului de
Istorie Naţională 1 (1921–1922): 329, who establishes that this poem refers to the Wallachian
prince Mircea Ciobanul the Shepherd (1545–1554 and 1558–1559). For other examples of
identification by these “signs,” see Nicolae Iorga, “Pretendenţi domnesci în secolul al XVI-
lea [Claimants to the throne in the 16th century],” Analele Academiei Române, Memoriile
Secţiunii Istorice, series 2, vol. 19 (1896–1897): 196.
3  Marc Bloch, Les Rois thaumaturges: Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la puissance
royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre (Strasbourg: Librairie Istra, 1924), 245–256,
300–302.
4  In thirteenth century Germany, it was the gilded cross. In England, at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, the royal mark was a “shining and very beautiful cross.” In 1457, the mark
attributed to Charles VII was a fleur de lis, while the Austrian Habsburgs had a birthmark on
their backs “in the form of white hairs in the fashion of a cross.” Finally, James I of England,
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, bore on his body a “lion and a crown, to which
some added a sword.” According to Marco Polo, in Georgia “in olden days all the kings were
born with an eagle marked upon their right shoulder.” Quotations here are from the English
translation of Bloch’s Les Rois thaumaturges, namely The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 81

As for medieval Wallachia and Moldavia, it is readily apparent that the sun,
the moon, and the star occur on their coats of arms, surrounding the crow (in
Wallachia) and the head of an aurochs (in Moldavia).
Once this preliminary identification was completed, the ceremony for the
designation of a new prince followed. Participating here were the metropoli-
tan, the great boyars, and the court dignitaries. This election ritual took place
in the metropolitan church of Curtea de Argeș, which Vlad knew well. It was
his father’s foundation, consecrated on August 15, 1439. On the entrance tower
of the enclosure walls, Vlad Dracul had placed a sculpted plaque depicting a
dragon crushing an animal resembling a lion. This image alludes to his mem-
bership in the Order of the Dragon, and also occurs on his coinage.5
Following the designation ceremony, the metropolitan and boyars left the
church and mounted a platform, where the metropolitan announced to
the people: “Your prince is dead. Whom do you wish to choose as voievod in
his place?” The boyars, army, and all the assembled people then cried out: “We
wish only Vlad, son of voievod Vlad!”
The acclamation was followed by the ceremony of anointment. The prince
was brought to the high altar of the metropolitan church, where he knelt while
the metropolitan read him the ritual of anointment.
What ritual was followed in 1456 is not precisely known, but three later texts
may shed some light on the subject. In a manuscript dating from 1705, from the
metropolitanate of Moldavia, there is a “Ritual for the Coronation of Emperors
and Princes,” which is a close translation of the prayer recited at the corona-
tion of Manuel II Palaiologos on February 11, 1392.6 It is possible that Vlad had
also been anointed using this prayer, in a Slavonic translation, because the
Wallachian church, at that time, was closely dependent on the ecumenical
patriarchate of Constantinople. Although the Romanians spoke a Romance
language, throughout the middle ages they used Old Church Slavonic as their

Scrofula in England and France, trans. J. E. Anderson (1973; reprint Abington-on-Thames and
New York: Routledge, 2015), 143–146.
5  Pavel Chihaia, “Deux armoiries sculptées appartenant aux voïvodes Vlad Dracul et Neagoe
Basarab,” Revue roumaine d’histoire de l’art 1 (1964): 151–167.
6  Peter Schreiner, “Hochzeit und Krönung Kaiser Manuels II. im Jahre 1392,” Byzantinische
Zeitschrift 60 (1967): 70–85; Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus, 101–105; Paul Mihail and Ioan
Caproșu, “Despre ceremonialul domnesc [On Princely Ceremonial],” Anuarul Institutului
de Istorie și Arheologie “A. D. Xenopol” 13 (1971): 397–399; Andrei Pippidi, Tradiţia politică
bizantină în ţările române în secolele XVI–XVIII [The Byzantine political tradition in the
Romanian lands from the sixteenth to eighteenth century] (Bucharest: Editura Academiei
Republicii Socialiste România, 1983), 37.
82 CHAPTER 4

language of religion, as did the Bulgarians (whence they derived it), Serbs,
Ukrainians, and Russians.
The anointing of princes was done with holy chrism, a mixture of olive
oil, balsam, and more than thirty fragrant substances, which was prepared
and blessed once per year, on Holy Thursday. This holy chrism came from
Constantinople, where the patriarch and the metropolitans prepared it in a
special ceremony.7 The churches dependent on a patriarch (which were not
autocephalous) were not authorized to prepare holy chrism, but needed to se-
cure it from Constantinople.
When the metropolitan finished his prayer with the words “We ask now that
the grace of the Holy Spirit descend upon him,” the full assembly—ecclesi-
astics and laity—chanted three times: “He is worthy!” (axios [esti], in Greek,
dignus est, in Latin). This acclamation was then repeated several times while
the prince left the high altar.
Next, he was undressed and then robed in princely garments. Let us note,
here, that in contrast to his predecessors who wore western style costume
(tight stockings, a short tunic, a short cape fastened on one shoulder), Vlad
was the first Wallachian prince to wear a Turkish style caftan of velvet and
silk—with gold filament embroidery, buttons of precious stones, and sable
lining. The cloths were manufactured in Florence and Venice.
The other princely insignia bestowed during the coronation ceremony were
a gold crown set with precious gems; the country’s standard, of white silk dam-
ask bearing the national coat of arms (equivalent to Constantine the Great’s
labarum); the scepter (in Romanian buzdugan or topuz, words of Turkish ori-
gin); the sword (in Romanian spadă, from Greek spathe) and the saber; and
finally the lance.8 He was also presented with the Cross of the Savior, for him
to kiss.
The prince then seated himself on the princely throne, and all those assist-
ing came to kiss his right hand: the metropolitan, priests and abbots of monas-
teries, boyars, court dignitaries, and military commanders. The day ended with
a grand banquet.

7  Cf. Mother Nectaria McLees, “The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit: Preparing Chrism at the
Ecumenical Patriarchate,” Road to Emmaus: A Journal of Orthodox Faith and Culture 13, no. 3
(#50) (Summer 2012): 49–71, and pp. 58–59 for ingredients.
8  Corina Nicolescu, “Les Insignes du pouvoir: Contribution à l’histoire du cérémonial de cour
roumain,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 15, no. 2 (1977): 233–258. See also her Istoria
costumului de curte în Ţările Române (sec. XIV–XVIII) [History of court costume in the
Romanian lands, fourteenth-eighteenth Century] (Bucharest: Muzeul de Artă al Republicii
Socialiste România, Secţia de Artă Veche Românească, 1970).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 83

The following day, the prince again visited the metropolitan church, fol-
lowed by the military chiefs, merchants, the lesser boyars, and the officers of
the court. Inside were two portable tables covered with veils, on which were
placed a gospel book—richly bound in gilt silver—, and a cross of gold. Seated
before each table was the metropolitan or a bishop. Next, the boyars and digni-
taries swore oaths of loyalty to the prince. A secretary was seated before each
table, holding in his hand a written sheet. The great boyars placed their hands
on the gospel and the cross, while a secretary read them a text which probably
differed little from the following.
Although dating to some two centuries after the time of Vlad Dracula, it is
still the oldest known text of its kind:

Swear on the Holy Gospel and on the Holy Cross to be one in thought
and deeds with [Lord Voievod Vlad, son of Voievod Vlad], to obey
him and be faithful, in public and in private, without keeping secrets
from him, for as long as he and you are alive, and not betraying or plot-
ting against him. If you betray him, if you conspire against him, if you are
not faithful to him, you will be cursed and repelled by the Holy Trinity
and by the Seven Councils. And what happend to the walls of Jericho,
to Sodom and Gomorrah, and to Judas and Arius, will happen to you as
well. And you will suffer the fate of Annas and Caiphas, and those who
crucified Christ.9

At each phrase, the boyars responded “Amen, Amen, Amen,” and then kissed
the prince’s right hand and hem of his cape. Following suit were the metropoli-
tan and the clergy, and finally all the other dignitaries.
After the prince was crowned, couriers were sent throughout the country to
announce his accession to the throne. For forty days, thousands of country
nobles, city folk, and peasants came from all over the land to kiss the prince’s
hand and swear their loyalty. Finally, the prince sent the new chief of the army
(spătar) with his troops to secure, in the capital of each county (in Romanian
judeţ), the loyalty oath from the locals.10

9   Adapted here from Paul of Aleppo’s account of Constantine I Șerban’s 1654 coronation
ceremony. Cf. Holban, ed., Călători străini, vol. 6, p. 136, and Belfour’s English translation,
vol. 1, p. 147.
10  Corina Nicolescu, “Le Couronnement—‘încoronaţia:’ Contribution à l’histoire du céré-
monial de cour roumain,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 14, no. 4 (1976): 647–663.
Also compare the two Wallachian princely coronations of 1654 (Constantin I Șerban) and
1658 (Mihnea III Radu) described in detail by Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo, in his Travels
84 CHAPTER 4

“A Fierce and Dreadful Appearance”

By the oath of loyalty which they swore, with their hands on the gospel and the
cross, the boyars, clergy, town folk and peasants felt themselves strongly bound
to their prince. Treason would not only incur spiritual penalties, but as we shall
see, corporal and even more radical forms of punishment.
On that radiant day in the month of August 1456, Voievod Vlad, son of
Voievod Vlad (there was no numbering of princes at this time; they were
known by their epithets) was presented before his people. Twenty-six or
twenty-seven years old, his air was somber and determined. Nicholas of
Modrussa, who encountered Vlad Dracula a few years later, has left us the fol-
lowing striking portrait:

We saw him imprisoned, and [he was not], indeed, very tall, but sound
and strong of limb, with a fierce and dreadful appearance, a large, aqui-
line nose, inflated nostrils, and a thin and somewhat red face, on which
quite prominent eyelashes surrounded wide-open bluish-gray [sic, glau-
cos] eyes, and [which] black, thick-haired eyebrows made to appear
threatening. In addition his cheeks and entire chin were shaven, and the
only part [of his face not shaven were] the upper lips. Swollen temples
increased the bulk of his head. A bull-like neck connected [his] lofty head
with [his] broad shoulders, onto which [his] black, curly hair reached.11

of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch. For the Arabic original with French translation, see ed.
and trans. Radu, vol. 24, fasc. 4, pp. 575–580 (Constantin I) and pp. 401–403 (Mihnea III).
For translations in English see Belfour, vol. 1, pp. 144–146 (Constantin I) and vol. 2, pp. 401–
402 (Mihnea), but note Ioana Feodorov’s remarks on the problems of the Balfour transla-
tion (“The Edition and Translation of Christian Arabic Texts of the 17th–18th Centuries
Referring to the Romanians,” Revue des études des sud-est européennes 43, nos. 1–4 [2005]:
254). For a Romanian rendering, see Alexandrescu-Dersca, in Holban, ed., Călători străini,
vol. 6, pp. 134–136 (Constantin I) and pp. 262–264 (Mihnea). Superseding this is Ioana
Feodorov’s recent Romanian translation, based on a fuller Arabic manuscript, i.e. Paul
din Alep, pp. 266–267 (Constantin I) and pp. 413–415 (Mihnea III). Also important is her
analysis of Paul of Aleppo’s account of Mihnea’s coronation in “Mihnea III Radu, Prince of
Wallachia, as Seen by Paul of Aleppo and his Father Makāriyūs ibn al-Za‘īm, Patriarch of
Antioch,” Revue des études sud-est européennes 52, nos. 1–4 (2014): 300–302.
11  Cf. Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally’s widely quoted but at points inaccurate
translation, in Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler 1431–1476 (New York: Hawthorn
Books, Inc., 1973), p. 8. For the original Latin, see Nicholas of Modrussa, ed. Mercati,
247–248. This important text was discovered by Alexandru Marcu, “Riflessi di storia
rumena in opere italiane dei secoli XIV e XV,” Ephemeris Dacoromana: Annuario della
Scuola Romena di Roma 1 (1923): 371–375. See also Șerban Papacostea, “Cu privire la
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 85

Pope Pius II, who had only seen an approximate portrait of the Wallachian
prince (an engraving decorating the 1463 Vienna incunable), described him as
follows:

The Wallachian is still languishing in prison. He is a tall, fine-looking

man who appears fit to rule, so much do men’s countenances often differ
from their hearts.12

Let us turn now to the portraits of Vlad,13 of which the only true one was for-
merly part of the Ambras Castle collections, in the Austrian Tyrol, and is now
on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (fig. 5). Here the prince
is depicted in three quarter view, wearing over his long curly hair a red velvet
hat, adorned with eight rows of pearls on the lower part. Upon the forehead is
an eight-pointed gold star, in the center of which is an enormous, rectangular
ruby. Directly above that is a white egret’s feather, at the base of which are five
rather large pearls. The eyebrows are arched and cover large, open grey-green
eyes. A long, slightly hooked nose, with prominent nostrils, impinges on a long,
straight, brown moustache which extends across nearly the entire face. The
Habsburg like lower lip is red and protruding, and the chin is slightly progna-
thous. This combination of a hooked nose over red lips has been called a par-
rot’s beak over two cherries. Vlad Dracula is wearing a red orange shirt, a bright
red and purple tunic, fastened by large, round buttons, adorned with precious
gems. A cloak of sable with magenta frogging completes the costume.
A miniature copy of this portrait, originally also part of Archduke
Ferdinand of Tyrol’s collection at Castle Ambras, is currently on display in the

geneza și răspîndirea povestirilor scrise despre faptele lui Vlad Ţepeș [Concerning the
genesis and diffusion of stories about Vlad the Impaler],” Romanoslavica 13 (1966): 163,
note 3, and Castilia Manea-Grgin, “Biskup Nikola Modruški o vlaškom knezu Vladu III.
Drakuli-Ţepeşu te o podrijetlu i jeziku Rumunja [Bishop Nikola Modruški’s notes on the
Wallachian prince Vlad III Dracula-Ţepeş and Romanians’ Latin origin and language],”
Povijesni prilozi 28 (2005): 107–133. Grgin reproduces Mercati’s edition of the Latin text
on pp. 130–131.
12  Commentaries of Pius II, Books X–XIII, trans. Gragg, 740. For the original Latin, and a com-
parison of Pius II’s description with that of Nicholas of Modrussa, see Cazacu, L’histoire
du prince Dracula, 25.
13  For a comprehensive overview with accompanying plates, see Erwin Pokorny, “Dracula-
Porträts des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, Katalognummern 1.1–1.17,” in Dracula: Woiwode und
Vampir: Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, 18. Juni–31. Oktober 2008, ed. Wilfried Seipel (Wien:
Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2008), 21–50.
86 CHAPTER 4

Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, in the cabinet of coins, medallions, and

antiquities.
A third portrait, dating to ca. 1470, has been part of the Österreichische
Galerie Belvedere’s collection since 1953 (fig. 6).14 It represents a cryptopor-
trait, and Vlad’s identity was not apparent even in 1969, when the painting was
on display in a special exhibit on “Daily Life and Festivity in the Middle Ages”.15
Here Dracula figures in the guise of an official presiding at the crucifixion of
Saint Andrew on the crux decussata, known as the “Saint Andrew cross.” His
face is rounder, the moustache finer, and the mantle is fastened at the neck.
In his right hand, Dracula holds a long commander’s baton, the upper part of
which rests on his shoulder.16
A fourth oil portrait was discovered in the Castle Forchtenstein collections,
not far from Wiener Neustadt, in the gallery of the Esterhazy family.17
A fresco depicting the Wallachian prince once existed on the walls of the
monastery church of Curtea de Argeș. Painted in 1526, a bishop of Argeș had it
removed and replaced with his own portrait at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.18
The other known portraits of Dracula appear on the first page of the German
pamphlets, which were printed down to 1568. The first in the series was printed
in Vienna in 1463, and it was quite a novelty for the times. It was this depiction
of Dracula that Pius II saw in 1463, as did the Regensburg notary Leonhard
Hefft a few years later. Hefft reacted to the image as follows:

14  Konrad Klein, “Vlad Tepes alias Dracula: ‘Ein rötlich-mageres Gesicht von drohendem
Ausdruck’,” Siebenbürgische Zeitung, November 3, 2002 (https://www.siebenbuerger
.de/zeitung/artikel/alteartikel/1495-vlad-tepes-alias-dracula-ein-roetlich.html [accessed
August 1, 2017]).
15  Österreichische Galerie, Alltag und Fest im Mittelalter: Gotische Kunstwerke als
Bilddokumente. Ausstellung in der Orangerie des Unteren Belvederes, 14. Nov. 1969 bis 15. Nov.
1970 (Vienna: Österreichische Galerie, 1969), 64–65 (No. 21, “Martyrium des hl. Andreas”).
Here the “hidden Dracula” is described as “… Knecht mit turbanartiger Kopfbedeckung,
Wams, dessen Saum Perlenbesatz aufweist, Beinlingen und weichen Stiefeln (‘pössel’).” A
German-Romanian scholar, Walter Peters, visited this exhibit in summer 1970 and recog-
nized Vlad’s depiction. On this, see Florescu and McNally, Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the
Impaler, p. 48 and note 4.
16  For a detail of Vlad’s face (in color), see Pokorny, “Dracula-Porträts,” 24, Abb. 7.
17  Raymond T. McNally and Benjamin Le Blanc, “Dracula într-un tablou necunoscut [An
unknown portrait of Dracula],” Magazin istoric 31, no. 1 (1997): 12–14. For discussion with
full page color plate, see Pokorny, “Dracula-Porträts,” 29–30.
18  Pavel Chihaia, “Semnificaţia portretelor din biserica mânăstirii Argeș [The signficance
of the portraits in the monastery church of Argeș],” Glasul Bisericii 26, nos. 7–8 (1967):
792–793.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 87

Indeed, to sum it up, in [his] aspect he appears cruel and austere, so that
the image of his face might well be depicted and sent almost everywhere
in the world as a spectacle.19

Following the 1463 portrait, the printers of incunabula produced copies, or

sometimes new portraits, which departed more and more from the original.
The one adorning the Peter Wagner edition (Nuremberg, 1488) was hand col-
ored, judging from the exemplar in the Rosenbach Library in Philadelphia
(fig. 8). By far the most eccentric of these portraits is the frontispiece of the
1493 Leipzig edition, where Vlad is wearing a curious flat hat with a long visor,
and sports an enormous moustache.20
A simple comparison between the Castle Ambras portrait and those en-
graved in the incunabula indicates the extent of the distortions the printers
inflicted on the prototype. Some modern interpretations of these pamphlet
portraits are even more curious, as for example that by a great nineteenth
century Romanian historian and philosopher, Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
(1838–1907). Using the woodblock depiction of Vlad in the Lübeck pamphlet
(1488–1493)—the only portrait in this genre widely known in the nineteenth
century—Hasdeu proposed a “philosophy of the portrait of The Impaler.” His
influences here ranged from Machiavelli and Shakespeare, to works on phre-
nology, to Lavater’s studies on physiognomy. In his view, Vlad’s forehead could
only belong “to a man gifted with the most vigorous intelligence.” The bump
between the eyebrows (“the bump of individualization”) and the wrinkles on
his forehead denote “a memory for things and facts, a facility for learning, a
taste for detail.” Dracula’s eyes and nose resemble those of Cesar Borgia and
Shakespeare. His hooked nose is the nose of “men destined to distinguish

19  For Hefft’s Latin and comparative analysis of his information, see Cazacu, L’histoire du
prince Dracula, 24–25. The English translation supra follows Frank Shaw’s interpreta-
tion in his review of Der Anfang von Dracula: Zur Geschichte von Geschichten, by Dieter
Harmening, The Modern Language Review 81, no. 1 (1986): 248.
20  Discovered and published in facsimile by Natalya V. Varbanets, “Nemeckaja brošjura
‘Ob odnom velikom izverge’—Lejpcigskoe izdanie 1493 g. [The German pamphlet ‘About
a great tyrant’—Leipzig edition of 1493],” in Jakov S. Lur’e, Povest’ o Drakule [The tale of
Dracula] (Leningrad: Nauka, 1964), 185–193 and facsimile between pp. 196 and 197. Other
reproductions and portraits in Constantin J. Karadja, “Incunabulele povestind despre cru-
zimile lui Vlad Ţepeș [The incunabula recounting the cruelties of Vlad the Impaler],” in
Închinare lui Nicolae Iorga cu prilejul împlinirii vârstei de 60 de ani [Collected essays in
honor of Nicolae Iorga on his sixtieth birthday], ed. Constantin Marinescu (Cluj-Napoca:
Editura Institutului de istorie universală, 1931), 190–206; and Karadja, “Die ältesten ge-
druckten Quellen zur Geschichte der Rumänen,” Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 9 (1934): 114–136.
88 CHAPTER 4

themselves by the energy of their activity; to make and unmake, construct and
demolish; but not to suffer with calmness, with strength, with dignity the in-
imical blows of fate.”21 Such was the man. But who was he going to find sur-
rounding and supporting him?

The Princely Council of Wallachia

Vlad of course had to understand how to deal with the Wallachian nobility. In
his study on the princely domain in Wallachia, Ion Donat describes the situa-
tion as follows:

[… An] oligarchy less numerous and hereditary […] with a closed char-
acter, […] so completely divided by struggles to obtain riches and digni-
ties that, in numerous cases, one can’t even speak of the moral unity of
the noble families, whose members oppose one another with the most
reprehensible forms of political persecution, even going so far as mur-
der. The confiscations of goods practiced by the princes fatally facilitates
this situation. For when they strike at certain members of one family, this
constitutes for others of the same family an occasion to obtain favors.22

After the coronation and securing of loyalty oaths, the prince had to choose
his council, which numbered on average twelve members, probably alluding
to the twelve apostles. For this topic, the evidence remains spotty. To this day,
only four documents emanating from Vlad’s princely council are known. At the
beginning of his reign, Vlad retained certain boyars who had previously served
under other princes. With each passing year, however, he tended to replace
standing members with new men, with no established reputations. In 1457,
eight out of twelve boyars in the council were new; in 1458, it was seven of nine;
in 1459, ten out of eleven; and in 1461, nine of ten.23

21  Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, “Filozofia portretului lui Ţepeș: Schiţă istoriografică
[Philosophy of the portrait of Vlad the Impaler: historiographic sketch],” in Scrieri lit-
erare, morale și politice [Literary, moral and political writings], ed. Mircea Eliade, vol. 2
(Bucharest: Fundaţia pentru literatură și artă “Regele Carol II,” 1937), 9–20.
22  Donat, Domeniul domnesc în Ţara Românească, 101–102.
23  These calculations were established for the first time in my 1969 Master’s Thesis (“Vlad
Ţepeș: Monografie istorică,” pp. 70–71). Florescu and McNally incorporated my conclu-
sions in their Dracula: A Biography, 61, citing only the charters on which the numbers
are based. My findings appear next in Nicolae Stoicescu’s Vlad Ţepeș (Bucharest: Editura
Academiei Române, 1976), 52, note 53, which references Florescu and McNally’s work.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 89

Retaining, in 1457, a third of the great lords who had served under his pre-
decessor demonstrated a certain adroitness on Dracula’s part. His first council-
lor, chosen only for his influence in Wallachian society, didn’t hold any court
office or official function. This was the elderly Manea Udriște, a fixture in the
Wallachian princes’ entourage since 1432, who served Vlad Dracul in the capac-
ity of vornic (from the Slavic dvor, court). He had held this position in the reign
of Vladislav II until 1453, when he was succeeded by his son Dragomir. His
properties were located in the province of Prahova and Dâmboviţa, near the
capital of the country.24 In contrast to the elderly Manea, his son Dragomir—
who was the leading figure in Vladislav II’s princely council (1453–1456)—was
Vlad Dracula’s determined adversary. He disappeared from the political scene
after 1456 and resurfaced, between 1467 and 1492, as one of the most important
counselors of four successive princes.
This function of vornic was the highest ranking Wallachian office (record-
ed in documents since 1389), in competition with that of the ban (governor
of Oltenia), who resided in the countryside and thus doesn’t appear in the
princely documents. In the Latin sources of Wallachia, the various terms for
vornic are judex et palatinus curiae nostra (palatine judge), provisor, and judex
curiae. The sense, thus, is administrator of the princely court and judge of the
entire country, with the exception of Oltenia, where the ban carried out these
functions. The corresponding office in Hungary was the palatine count (comes

Such is the case for other (small) discoveries and original ideas developed in my Master’s
Thesis. [Editor’s note: In the 1978 English translation of Stoicescu’s Vlad Ţepeș, the afore-
mentioned note 53 referencing Florescu and McNally is omitted. Cf. Vlad Ţepeș: Prince of
Wallachia, trans. Cristina Krikorian, Bibliotheca historica Romaniae, Monographs, vol. 21
(Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1978), p. 37].
24  On his death, his lands devolved to his son Dragomir, who died without descendants. After
him, the domain passed to his first cousins, the sons of his sister, who married a boyar
from the Vintilescu clan. The first names Drăghici (from the same Slavic root as Dragomir)
and Udriște reappear in each generation, as was customary among the European nobility,
for whom a name was a reminder and a kind of “life program” (see Michael Mitterauer,
Ahnen und Heilige: Namengebung in der europäischen Geschichte [Munich: C. H. Beck,
1993]). After the extinction of this clan in the male line, its properties passed in the seven-
teenth century to the Cantacuzino and Filipescu families, who played an important role
in the history of Wallachia, and after 1859, Romania. For the boyar clan of the Mărgineni,
as they will be known in the sixteenth century, see George D. Florescu, “Genealogia boier-
ilor din Mărgineni din secolele al XV-lea și al XVI-lea [Genealogy of the Mărgineni boyars
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuryies],” Bulentinul Comisiei Istorice a României 9 (1930):
5–100.
90 CHAPTER 4

palatii), the roots of which are Merovingian.25 Let us note that in seventeenth
century Moldavia, the vornic (with the same functions as in Wallachia) bore a
gold commander’s baton, a tradition perhaps inherited from antiquity.26
Second in importance in the 1457 princely council was the vornic Codrea.
This new man was staunchly loyal to Vlad Dracula. The latter, however, put him
to death early in 1459, and the king of Hungary confiscated his fortune depos-
ited in Brașov, valued at 3,000 gold florins.
Vlad’s third councillor was Dragomir, son of Ţacal, and is attested for 1457–
1459. He was a boyar probably originating from Oltenia, where one of his six-
teenth century descendants, Ţacal, possessed a village near the river Olt, not
far from the Danube. Dragomir also disappears from the documents after 1459,
no doubt executed by Vlad.
The fourth council member, as revealed in Dracula’s 1457 charter, was Voico,
son of Dobriţa, another new man who succeeded in maintaining himself in
all of Vlad’s known councils until 1461, at which time he played the role of first
counselor. In 1460, the prince even sent him to Brașov bearing a letter, in which
he is designated as “nostrum specialem consilarium nobis sincere dilectum” and
is charged to return political refugees to Wallachia.27
Stan, son of Negrea (Negrev, Negrovic, “the black”), the fifth member of the
council, was a boyar raised to high functions by Vladislav II between 1450 and
1456. He was still a member in 1458, and likewise in 1459 when he was third
in rank. Thereafter he disappears from the documents, probably a victim of
his prince.
The next and sixth attested member of the council in 1457, and the only
one designated as jupan (great lord), was a certain Duca (Doukas). He was
certainly of Greek origin, as the name of his estate, Greci (literally, “Greeks’
Village”) clearly indicates. He appears for the first time in Wallachian history
as Vladislav II’s councillor in 1450–1451, then disappears from the documents
until the year 1457. He therefore must have then been aligned with Hungary
and the Transylvanian Saxons, because after 1457 he fell into disgrace, and

25  Mediae Latinitatis lexicon minus: Lexique latin médiéval-franc̦ais/anglais = A Medieval

Latin-French/English Dictionary, ed. Jan F. Niermeyer (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), 204–205,
s.v. “comes: 2. comes palatii.”
26  Emil Vîrtosu, “Din sigilografia Moldovei și a Ţării Românești [The sigillography of Moldavia
and Wallachia],” in Documente privind istoria României: Introducere [Documents concern-
ing the history of Romania: Introduction], eds. Damian P. Bogdan et al., vol. 1 (Bucharest:
Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Române, 1956), 510–515 et seq.
27  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLXII, p. 320.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 91

between 1463 and 1469 resurfaced in the council of Radu cel Frumos, Vlad
Dracula’s brother and immediate successor.
In seventh position, as revealed in Dracula’s 1457 charter, we encounter an
important person, Cazan, son of Sahac,28 whose political career had begun
in 1431 when he was Alexander Aldea’s chancellor. Clearly endowed with
great political adroitness, Cazan succeeded in maintaining his power under
Vlad Dracul and Vladislav II, initially as chancellor, later as jupan. In Vlad
the Impaler’s reign, he appears in all his charters as chancellor. With impres-
sive political longevity, he was involved in all the princely councils until 1478!
Later documents reveal that the Cazan clan’s estates were concentrated near
Târgoviște, the capital, between the counties of Dâmboviţa and Ilfov, and also
south of Bucharest near the Danube.
The five other council members attested in the charter of 1457 all occu-
pied court positions: chancellor (logofăt, from the Greek logothetis); chief of
the army or spătar (from spatha, sword); seneschal or stolnic (from stol, table
in Slavic); cupbearer or paharnic; and finally comis, originally equivalent to
constable. All these new men disappeared after the Dracula’s reign. Only the
prince’s secretary who drafted the 1457 charter, Calcea, retained his position as
chancellor, as he had done since 1431. Let us note, finally, Vlad’s Latin secretary
Linart (Leonard), a Saxon from Brașov who had served Vlad Dracul during his
exile and who became chancellor in 1461.29

28  His name is Cazan son of Sahac (Sahakov), but Sahac is in fact his grandfather who lived
at the end of the fifteenth century, and whose son Radu (d. 1450) already bore this patro-
nymic of Armenian origin. Our Cazan, moreover, had an apparently older brother named
Sahac (d. before 1450), and another named Radu Trămândan, the latter being an epithet
derived from a Mediterranean wind—the tramontane—, via Greek.
29  George D. Florescu, Divanele domnești din Ţara Românească [The princely councils
of Wallachia], vol. 1, 1389–1495 (Bucharest: Institutul de istorie nationala din București,
1943); Constantin C. Giurescu, Contribuţiuni la studiul marilor dregătorii în secolele XIV
și XV [Contributions to the study of the high offices in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries] (Bucharest: Valenii de Munte, 1926), and also his Noi contribuţiunii la studiul
marilor dregătorii in secolele XIV și XV [New contributions to the study of the high of-
fices in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries] (Bucharest: Atelierele Grafice Socec &
Comp., Societate Anonimă, 1925); Nicolae Stoicescu, Sfatul domnesc și marii dregători din
Ţara Românească și Moldova, sec. XIV–XVII [The princely council and the high offices in
Wallachia and Moldavia, fourtheenth-seventeenth centuries], Biblioteca istorică, vol. 16
(Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1968), and also his Dicţionar
al marilor dregători din Ţara Românească și Moldova, sec. XIV–XVII [Dictionary of the
high offices of Wallachia and Moldavia, fourteenth-seventeenth centuries] (Bucharest:
Editura enciclopedică română, 1971).
92 CHAPTER 4

Wallachian Society in the Fifteenth Century

Once the mix between new men, veterans, and grandees on the princely
council was established, Dracula could begin to govern. He was concerned
first and foremost with fiscal matters—the rate of taxes and various other
tariffs, and the schedule and methods of collection. To determine this, the
treasurer and his assistants reviewed the registers listing the cities and villages
throughout the county, which were grouped by counties, and the amounts
that each were liable to pay. This taxation system was relatively simple, but
its operation varied depending on the type of tax. The amount needed for
taxes targeted for disbursements—such as the bir levied to pay the tribute to
the Turks—was known in advance, and levied on the counties according to the
number of fiscal units each possessed. Flat percentage taxes (tithes, etc.) were
revised each year according to taxpayers’ financial capabilities. But overall,
taxation was not applied uniformly but differed according to social class, the
nobility and clergy being favored, and the peasantry, both free and dependent,
being more heavily taxed.
In truth, Vlad the Impaler faced at the outset a rather huge problem. His
predecessor’s treasurer, Pahulea, had fled to Transylvania, taking with him the
treasury records. Pahulea appears in 1451 among the prince’s councillors with
the title protovistier (first, or grand treasurer). In 1460, he was a member of
Prince Dan’s council. Dan was a pretender to the Wallachian throne, whom
Vlad defeated and put to death. Pahulea must have had the same fate.30 Others
of Vladislav II’s boyars had also taken flight, including the chancellor Mihai
(Michael), probably assassinated by Vlad in 1460, and a certain Pardoi, whom
Vlad insistently demanded that the burghers of Brașov return early in 1458.
The treasurer’s absence must have temporarily destabilized the finan-
cial administration, but it is only in 1458 that we find a new treasurer in the
princely council, namely Iova (Job), who in 1457 was the constable, and
who evidently served the prince satisfactorily since he maintained his office
throughout Dracula’s entire reign.

30  One of his descendants with the same name—which is rare, and is derived from
“Pahomie”—died without successors in the middle of the sixteenth century and was bur-
ied in the monastery church of Găiseni, a foundation of the Florescu boyars. This was a
noble clan whose descendants still live in Romania, France, and the United States. One
of these, Radu R. Florescu, late professor at Boston College, wrote two books and numer-
ous articles about Vlad Dracula, who was a great enemy of the Florescu family. Pahulea
must have been related to the Florescus, otherwise he could not have been buried in their
foundation.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 93

Collecting the taxes anew was a difficult task. It was necessary to establish
a country-wide cadastral registry to calculate each city and village’s capacity
to pay its due. This assessment was repeated every three years, whereas in
the Ottoman Empire it was carried out with each change of sultan, or in long
reigns, every ten years.
At this time the country included around 2,100 villages and seventeen mar-
ket towns and cities. The number of its inhabitants is unknown, since statis-
tics from this period are unreliable, but documents from the fifteenth through
eighteenth centuries provide considerable insight. The earliest dates to 1475
and contains a list of revenues of the kingdom of Hungary. Among these rev-
enues, there is information concerning Wallachia’s obligations to its suzerain,
Matthias Corvinus, but this surely reflects older practice:

At the coronation of a king of Hungary, he receives from Wallachia one

horse per casa [house]. The horses from the boyars [zentilhomini] should
be worth 25 ducats each, and those of the commoners [popolari] 15. And
when the king takes a wife, they [each] will give him a cow. And the num-
ber of families [casate] is 40,000.
At the time of King Ladislas [the Posthumous, 1444–1457], 60,000 cows
were received. Nothing more will be taken today, except that they [the
Wallachians] are obliged to participate in the defense of the state.31

What do this figures mean? Considering that a household (casa), at this

time, comprised on average four to five persons, we can estimate that in 1456
Wallachia had a population of 270,000 to 300,000 inhabitants, which would
be reduced, in 1475, by a third (from 60,000 to 40,000 households), totaling
in other words between 180,000 and 200,000 inhabitants. This last figure ap-
proximates the situation documented by the sixteenth century Turkish histo-
rian Mustfa Ali, who claims that “at the time of the late sultan Süleyman [i.e.,
1520–1566], Wallachia had 48,000 households in the cadastral registry.”32 From
40,000 families in 1475 to 48,000 in 1566, the population of Wallachia would
have grown by 20%, in a space of ninety years. However, the calculations made

31  Simonetta, ed. Natale, 202. This source was discovered and analyzed by Șerban Papacostea,
“Populaţie și fiscalitate în Ţara Românească în secolul al XV-lea: Un nou izvor [Population
and fiscality in Wallachia in the 15th century: A new source],” Revista de istorie 33 (1980):
1779–1786. Also see Papacostea’s “Din nou cu privire la demografia Ţării Românești în se-
colul XV [Once again on the demography of Wallachia in the 15th century],” Revista de
statistică 37, no. 6 (1984): 578–581.
32  Papacostea, “Populaţie și fiscalitate,” 1783.
94 CHAPTER 4

by foreigners (Simonetta’s information for 1475, and Mustafa Ali’s numbers

from 1566), are notoriously inaccurate. The Ottomans, however, were them-
selves aware of this, as the new sultan Selim II’s order to the beys of Semendria
and Vidin in 1588 reveals. He directed them to take care, when carrying out a
new population census, that the Vlachs be properly recorded. For, the sultan
adds, “the Vlachs withdraw and go into hiding every time there is a census […],
and return to their dwellings when the operation is completed.”33
A figure of 200,000 inhabitants strikes us as too low. Indeed, if a peasant
household numbered four to five persons, a noble house would have servants
and Gypsy slaves by the dozens. For purposes of comparison, let us analyze
the situation in neighboring Hungary. According to Cicco Simonetta’s source
for 1475, Hungary included 250,000 taxpaying households, and an additional
1,700 nobles who paid no taxes but were obliged to provide soldiers to the
army. However, for this same time period, Hungarian historians calculate that
the population of the kingdom reached nearly four million inhabitants, scat-
tered in 21,000 to 22,000 villages and 870 “fortezze murate” (walled fortresses).
Neighboring Wallachia, with its 2,100 villages, consequently must have been
ten times less populous, or around 400,000 inhabitants.
Between 180,000 and 400,000, or even 600,000 inhabitants, the range is too
large to establish a reasonable mean. What do calculations based on popula-
tion density, in particular regions, reveal? For the fifteenth century, Hungarian
specialists estimate the population density to be around eight inhabitants per
square kilometer. Extrapolating these figures for Wallachia (77,000 square ki-
lometers), this would suggest an aggregate population of 616,000 inhabitants.
In comparison, Fernand Braudel, following various demographers, proposes a
figure of 14 inhabitants per square kilometer for Prussia and Poland (versus 44
in Italy, 34 in France, or 28 in Germany).34 Applying this calculus to Wallachia,
its population would number 1,078,000, which is aberrant! These estimates
based on population density need to be rethought with reference to a statisti-
cal analysis recently undertaken for thirteenth to sixteenth century Făgaraș, a
Transylvanian fief of the Wallachian princes. Over a total area of 2,000 square
kilometers, there were some 65 villages of 25–30 households, each containing
an average of 4.5 inhabitants, resulting in a population density of 5 persons

33  Mihail Guboglu, Catalogul documentelor turcești [Catalogue of Turkish documents], vol. 1
(Bucharest: Direcţia Gen. a Arhivelor Statului din Republica Populară, 1960), nos. 54 and
60, from January 1 and April 16, 1568.
34  Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II,
trans. Siân Reynolds, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 397–398.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 95

per square kilometer. Applying this calculus to Wallachia, its population would
number 395,000 inhabitants (including the 10,000 souls at Făgaraș).35
Let us consider, finally, the Skazanie o Drakule voevode (ca. 1485–1486),
which claims that during Methmed II’s campaign against Wallachia, Vlad mo-
bilized his entire army36—which would have included all able-bodied men
over the age of twelve. Accordingly, the total size of Vlad’s army was around
31,000 men.37 All in all, one can reasonably conclude that Dracula’s Wallachia
was populated by around 400,000 souls, of which 90–92% lived in villages (cf. a
figure of 83% for 1914, and 78% for 1948), while the remainder dwelt in the six-
teen market towns and cities. This figure derives from a 1722 Austrian statistical
analysis of the population of the five counties of Oltenia, the first such inves-
tigation of its type.38 Town and city dwellers were estimated to make up 7.2%
of the population, and the boyars 0.8%. Such numbers surely approximate the
situation in fifteenth century Wallachia.
Seventeen market towns and cities were subject to Dracula. Câmpulung
(mentioned in 1300), Curtea de Argeș (1330), and Târgoviște (1408) served as

35  Antal Lukács, Ţara Făgărașului în Evul Mediu: Secolele XIII–XVI [The land of Făgăraș
in the Middle Ages: thirteenth-sixteenth centuries] (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică,
1999).
36  See Appendix, pp. 357–358, Episode 2. For the original Russian with facing French transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 2, p. 176 [Russian], 177 [French].
37  Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo notes that in 1658 Wallachia had 400,000 families, which
suggests a total population figure between 1.8 and 2 million inhabitants. This number
is unacceptable since it is much higher than the Russian statistics of 1838, which record
1.5 million souls. Austrian statistics from 1735 record 118,246 families, which gives a total
population of 591,230 (i.e., multiplying the number of families by a coefficient of five,
the average family size). This statistic was based on data directly collected by Austrians
in Oltenia, which was annexed to the Empire between 1718 and 1739, and information
from Wallachian tax authorities who were awaiting the arrival of imperial troops in the
rest of the country. See Șerban Papacostea, “Populaţia Ţării Românești în ajunul reformel-
or lui Constantin Mavrocordat [The population of Wallachia on the eve of Constantin
Mavrocordat’s reforms],” Studii: Revistă de istorie 19, no. 5 (1966): 929–939.
38  Șerban Papacostea, Oltenia sub stăpânirea austriacă, 1718–1739 [Oltenia under Austrian
domination, 1718–1739], Biblioteca istorică, vol. 23 (Bucharest: Editura Academiei
Republicii Socialiste România, 1971), 141–142. The figures were earlier published by
Constantin C. Giurescu, Material pentru istoria Olteniei sub austriaci [Material for the
history of Oltenia under the Austrians], vol. 2, 1726–1732 (Bucharest: Institutul de Istorie
Naţională din București, 1909), 304–330. Also see Henri H. Stahl, Les Anciennes commu-
nautés villageoises roumaines: Asservissement et pénétration capitaliste, Bibliotheca histor-
ica Romaniae, Monographies, vol. 6 (Bucharest: Editions de l’Académie de la République
socialiste de Roumanie, 1969), 22.
96 CHAPTER 4

court cities or capitals (even if this concept is too modern for the era). A sec-
ond group of ancient cities included the Danubian ports, some of which were
in existence even before the creation of the Wallachian state. Following the
course of the river east to west, the key cities were Kilia (founded 1318–1322),
an old Genoese trading post; Brăila (1368), the largest Wallachian port in the
fifteenth century; Târgu de Floci (Linocastro, the “Wool Castle,” fourteenth
century); Giurgiu (1394), the fortress reoccupied by the Turks in 1448–1449;
Turnu, at the confluence of the Olt and the Danube rivers; and lastly Turnu
Severin, Hungarian since 1419. Generally speaking, the other cities were the
county capitals which had attained, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
an urban status which entailed administrative autonomy and possession of an
ocol, an agrarian zone exploited by the townsfolk or peasants dependent on
the city.
One of the defining privileges of a city was the right to hold fairs on fixed
days, where local producers and merchants, and sometimes foreigners, came
together. When princes also conferred the staple right (Stapelrecht, scala)—as
was the case with Târgoviște, Câmpulung, and Târgsor under Dracula—a city’s
prosperity was assured.
At least two cities were noble properties. This was the case with Târgu Jiu
(1406), capital of the county of Gorj, and also Târgu Gilortului, which likewise
at one time was a neighboring county capital. The two cities held markets
(târg) and later fairs, and were elevated to the rank of princely cities in the
sixteenth century.
In contrast to other Balkan countries and Hungary, Wallachia did not pos-
sess strongholds comparable to Belgrade or Semendria. The rare fortresses
on the Danube were held by the Hungarians (Severin) or the Turks (Giurgiu),
the latter of whose control points continued in a line, along the right bank
of the Danube in Bulgaria, to Vidin, Nicopolis, Ruse (Rusciuk), Silistra (Dristra,
Drostor), and Turtucaia (Tmutorakan). The Wallachian cities were poorly forti-
fied, surrounded merely by a wood or brick enclosure. In case of invasion, the
population took refuge in the immense forests or the fortified monasteries.
In an effort to better control the country, the Wallachian princes built their
residence in the cities. This was the case with Bucharest, where Vlad Dracula
began work along these lines in 1459, with completion in 1465. These residences
were called dvor in Slavic, and curte (from curtis, court) in Romanian. They
housed the local central administration (in Romanian, judeţ), where taxes
were collected in coin and kind. In times of war, they served as assembly points
for troops departing on campaign.
The Wallachian principality army was composed of curteni (plural of
curtean)—i.e., landowning freemen—, sons of the lesser country nobility, as
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 97

well as boyar troops. This army, also called oastea cea mică or “the little army”
(from Latin hostis, and cf. medieval French ost), numbered around 10,000
cavalry. It was much smaller than the oastea cea mare or “the great army,”
with 30,000–40,000 men, in which all resident males of arms-bearing age
participated.
An important characteristic of medieval Wallachian society was the absence
of a crown domain, which has been explained as the natural consequence
of the Wallachian dynasty’s foreign origin (i.e., Transylvania). On the other
hand, the crown owned the great lakes of the Danube, which teamed with
all sorts of fish, and underground wealth—notably salt mines (which yielded
40,000 gold crowns per year in 1583), gold (20,000 gold crowns per year, also in
1583), and copper, etc.
The customs revenues, flat rate taxes (1/10th and 1/50th, especially on sheep
and pigs), and apportioned taxes—numbering in all between twelve and
eighteen, for our period—, constituted the income accruing to the princely
treasury. In addition Vlad the Impaler could rely on a land rich in men, live-
stock, salt, grains, wood, fish, abundant wild game, and vineyards producing
great quantities of light wine. Immense forests covered half the surface of the
country. The oak, beech and alder forests were so dense that one could travel
from the Danube to Transylvania without leaving this sea of greenery.39 Entire
wagons filled with salted or smoked fish, livestock, honey, beeswax, wine, furs,
etc. were exported to Transylvania. From the Levant came spices (pepper, saf-
fron, etc.), camel hair (camelot) fabrics, silks, cotton, high quality weapons,
Malvoisie wine, etc. For nearly thirty years the country had been spared wars
and pillaging raids, except for the Ottoman incursions into Transylvania in
1441–1442.

Very Restless Neighbors

Having assessed his country’s economic resources, Vlad could turn his atten-
tion to external affairs. His first act here was to swear loyalty to King Ladislas
the Posthumous, the documentation for which can be deduced from a treaty

39  Many counties of Wallachia have preserved the name of these massive forests, which in
large part have disappeared. Examples include Teleorman or Deliorman, of Turkic origin
and literally meaning “crazy forest;” Dâmboviţa, the county around Târgoviște, meaning
“oak forest;” Ilfov, meaning “alder forest,” located around Bucharest and extending west-
ward to the forest of Vlăsia; and Pădureţ (literally “forest”), a county in the northwest of
the country, which no longer exists.
98 CHAPTER 4

concluded September 6, 1456, with the Saxons of Brașov and the Burzenland.
After recalling Mircea the Old and his descendants’ services to the kings of
Hungary and the “Holy Crown” in defense of the “Orthodox Catholic Faith,”
Vlad declared that he wished to follow their example. He placed himself under
the protection of the king “our most gracious lord” out of fear of the Turks
(pro timore Turcorum), and swore an oath with four Saxon witnesses: George, a
former royal judge; Gaspar, a goldsmith; another Gaspar, a butcher; and Thes,
the judge of Râșnov. The oath provided that the voievod could enjoy the right
of asylum in Hungary and Transylvania in case of danger from the Turks, or
expulsion by internal enemies. Vlad was obliged, on his side, to defend the
Saxons against their enemies and to authorize merchants to circulate freely in
Wallachia without paying any taxes.40
This treaty represents a brutal shift in policy from that taken by Vladislav II.
For the merchants of Brașov and Burzenland, Dracula confirmed their exorbi-
tant privileges, with no reciprocity clause, and also seems to have abandoned
his predecessor’s monetary policy.
A similar agreement was probably signed around the same time with the
Saxons of Sibiu, but the text has not survived.41 The latter, however, were not
accorded the same privileges as the Brașov merchants, and had to pay taxes on
imported or exported merchandise.
The accord assuring the Transylvanians of Dracula’s military support crum-
bled only four days after its signing. Shortly after the Brașov agreement was
concluded, a Turkish ambassador arrived at Târgoviște demanding payment
of the annual tribute, the dispatch of a son as hostage, and the right of pas-
sage through the Carpathians to raid Transylvania—since the 1451 truce had
expired. A propos of this, the siege of Belgrade had triggered a resumption of
hostilities between the Ottomans and Hungarians.
Murad II had died on February 13, 1451, at the age of forty-seven. He fell
victim to an attack of apoplexy, during a convivial banquet where much wine
was flowing. He reigned thirty-two years, and is described by the contemporary
Chalkokondyles as follows:

He had been a just man and favored by fortune. He had fought in defense
and did not initiate acts of aggression, but he would immediately march

40  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLVII, pp. 316–317.
41  On March 14, 1457, Vlad reminded the burghers of Sibiu that, after having occupied the
throne, “vobiscum pacem bonam et inviolabile fecimus, ita ut inimicis essetis inimici […]
propter Deum et fidelitatem catolice fidei eciam fraternitatis et amicicie, quas inter nos
habemus, …” (Ibid., no. CCLIX, p. 319).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 99

against the one who did. If no one challenged him to war, he was not
eager to campaign; yet he did not shrink from it when it came to that.
Fighting to avenge himself, he would set out in winter and in the worst
conditions, and he took no account of toil or danger.42

Another Greek contemporary, the historian Doukas, records the following of

Murad:

The treaties which he sealed on sacred oath he kept inviolate and intact
to the end. If some Christians resorted to the violation of treaties and the
infraction of oaths,43 they did not escape the infallible eye of God. They
were justly punished by the judgment of the Avenger. Murad’s wrath
was not intemperate. After a victory, the barbarian would not set out in
hot pursuit of the fleeing enemy. Moreover, he did not thirst after the
complete destruction of the fallen nation, but as soon as the vanquished
sued for peace, he eagerly accepted their terms and dismissed the am-
bassadors in peace. He truly despised warfare and loved peace, and so
the Father of Peace meted out in turn a peaceful death to the barbarian
instead of death by the sword.44

Murad II’s son and successor Mehmed II was entirely different in tempera-
ment. As he commenced his reign, he was considered feeble, not very intel-
ligent, rather uncultivated, militarily inexperienced, and more given to wine
and women than the affairs of the empire. But in 1453 he made Christendom
tremble when he launched his assault on Constantinople, the capital of the
eastern Roman Empire. From this point on, not a year passed without wars.
The struggles with Serbia and Bosnia (1454–1456) had climaxed during the
Siege of Belgrade, the same year when Dracula ascended the throne. Even
though defeated by János Hunyadi, Mehmed II remained a far more dangerous
adversary than his father had ever been.
In a letter addressed to the Brașov burghers, dated Friday, September 10,
1456, Vlad Dracula somberly announced: “Now the time and the appointed
hour about which we spoke has arrived.” He further declared that, for his part,
it was easy for him to conclude peace with the Turks, and thus ensure the

42  For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2,
7.63–64, pp. 158/160 [Greek], 159/161 [English].
43  An allusion to the Treaty of 1444.
44  Doukas, trans. Magoulias, XXXIII.6, pp. 188–189. For the original Greek and Romanian
translation, see ed. and trans. Grecu, XXXIII.6, pp. 284 [Romanian], 285 [Greek].
100 CHAPTER 4

security of his country. He announced, however, that it was impossible for him
to agree to serve as guide and accomplice to the Ottoman armies heading to-
wards Transylvania. In addition, his desire not to harm the Saxons in any way,
to respect the treaties, and to remain their brother and friend, remained in-
tact. He proposed then to detain the Turkish envoy for some days, and asked
Brașov to send immediately, no later than Sunday September 12, a force of two
hundred, or one hundred, or even fifty picked men. Thus they would impress
the Turks with the power of the Hungarians, and they would further apprise
them that more soldiers were coming. Consequently the Turks would soften
and back off from their arrogant demands.
And to give Brașov a lesson in political strategy, the prince wrote:

You should consider the following. When a man or a lord is powerful

and strong, then he can make peace just as he wishes. But when he is
weak, one stronger than him will come and fashion for himself just as he
wishes.45

At the same time, Vlad sent a letter to King Ladislas and awaited his position
on affairs. Thus far he had counted on addressing the Turkish problem with
help from the Saxons, affirming “As God is my witness, we think more about
your welfare and security than we do of our own.”46
Despite Vlad’s appeal for aid—which he obviously intended as modest and
symbolic—the Saxons sent nothing, selfishly entrenched within their walls,
convinced that the king of Hungary would provide for their defense. After all,
it was precisely on that account that they paid taxes and maintained their
mercenaries.
Abandoned by all, incapable of standing up to the sultan’s envoys, Vlad re-
signed himself to paying the tribute. It was set at 10,000 gold ducats, which was a
considerable sum, five times higher than Moldavia’s assessment. Furthermore,
the voievod was now obliged, on an annual basis, to personally bring the trib-
ute to Istanbul, render homage to the sultan, and then return home—if the
sultan felt confident of his loyalty.
The Ottoman sources are unanimous in underscoring this aspect of the
sultan’s relationship with the Wallachian prince. Konstantin Mihailović, a
janissary of Serbian origin who wrote his memoirs at the end of the fifteenth

45  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLVIII, pp. 317–318, with quote on
p. 318. Treptow’s English translation of this letter is not fully accurate (in his Vlad III
Dracula, pp. 180–181).
46  Ibid., p. 318 (“quia deo teste plus de bonitate vestra et stabilitate cogitamus quam nostra”).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 101

century, recalled that Vlad came twice in succession to Mehmed II’s court, each
time receiving money, fine horses, ceremonial robes, and sumptuous tents.47
Tūrsūn Beg, another contemporary and secretary of the divan in 1462, con-
firmed that:

It was imposed on him to bring the tribute (harac̦) to the threshold of

saturnian rank [i.e., the Sublime Porte], and thus he came in person
every year with the tribute and costly gifts, to renew his desire for shelter
through the honor of kissing the throne. And he was rewarded by the
padishah with all kinds of favors: a ceremonial robe (hilat), a red caftan
(börk), a golden [fur] cap (üsküf ), and [the padishah] allowed him to re-
turn to his country.48

On the other hand, no contemporary source speaks of Vlad sending a son to

the Porte as hostage. Only the Russian Skazanie o Drakule voevode (composed
1483–1486) mentions the fate of one of Vlad’s sons:

The third and eldest son [of Dracula], named Michael [in fact, Mihnea], I
have seen here in Buda. He had fled from the Turkish emperor to the king.
Dracula had him from a young woman when he was not yet married.49

Vlad was compelled to make this decision because the Hungarians and his
Transylvanian friends abandoned him. Still in all, the Wallachian prince re-
fused to allow the Turks free passage for raiding in Transylvania. Indeed,
throughout his reign no expeditions of this sort are recorded.50

47  Mihailović, trans. Lachmann, 131. For the original Slavic with facing English translation,
see Milailović, ed. and trans. Stolz, 128 [Slavic]/129 [English].
48  For the original Ottoman with facing German translation, see Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3,
pp. 118 [Ottoman]/119 [German]. For a Romanian translation, see Guboglu and Mehmet,
eds., Cronici turcești, 67. A later Ottoman historian, Kemālpașazāde, specifies that the
gifts were a standard (skiptron), the top of which was gold, and a gilded sword (Corpus
Draculianum, vol. 3, pp. 226 [Ottoman]/227 [German]; Guboglu and Mehmet, 199). For
the amount of the tribute, see Guboglu, “Le Tribute payé par les principautés roumaines
à la Porte jusqu’au début du XVIe siècle, d’après les sources turques,” Revue des études
islamiques 1 (1969): 62–63.
49  Appendix, p. 353, Episode 19. For the original Russian with facing French translation, see
ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 19, pp. 210 [Russian]/211 [French].
50  One could have occurred in 1457, but it seems unlikely. Cf. Gündisch, “Siebenbürgen in
der Türkenabwehr,” 432.
102 CHAPTER 4

In a document of September 6, 1456, Vlad called himself in Latin parcium

Transsalpinarum wayvoda et dominus terrarum de Fogaras et Omlas.51 This is
the title Wallachian princes had used since 1365, when Vladislav I received
these two areas as fiefs from the king of Hungary. However, we’ve seen how
János Hunyadi confiscated them from Vladislav II during a conflict over mon-
etary issues. Let us recall, here, that Amlaș (in Hungarian alma, “apple”, hence
“apple orchard”)—a small domain which, in 1488, was comprised of eight vil-
lages with 219 hearths and fifteen abandoned houses—, had been held since
1453 by the burghers of Sibiu. Făgăraș, a significantly larger territory—2,000
square kilometers and sixty five villages, with a population of around 10,000—
had been occupied by Hunyadi himself in 1455. Shortly thereafter, the
Romanians of Făgăraș rose up and temporarily expelled the authorities and
châtelains whom Hunyadi had set in place. On April 6, 1456, the Hungarian
King Ladislas affirmed that the Wallachian prince had attacked, pillaged, and
burned Hunyadi’s estates.52
The great crusader’s death, and Vlad’s ascent to the throne, reopened this
thorny question. It seems that King Ladislas had promised to restore the
Transylvania fiefs, in exchange for an oath of loyalty. Vlad indeed wanted to
recover these fiefs, and was encouraged by the king’s promise. And so, in the
autumn of 1456, he proceeded manu militari to expel the men Hunyadi had set
in place, except for the châtelains of Făgăraș, firmly entrenched behind their
walls.
The Hungarian reaction was hostile towards Vlad. On October 13, King
Ladislas ordered the Transylvanian Saxons to expedite payment of the St.
Martin’s Day tax because:

Pressed by recently arisen needs, we require a large sum of money in

order to pay various debts, and manage the defense of our kingdom as
much against the Turks, as our other enemies.53

On December 17, 1456, János Hunyadi’s oldest son Ladislas wrote to the Brașov
burghers regarding damages which Vlad had inflicted. He didn’t exactly specify
the wrongdoing for which Vlad was responsible, but spoke vaguely of misdeeds

51  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLVIII, p. 318.

52  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. LXXIV, pp. 42–43.
53  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 3043, p. 545. In the following days, the king took
urgent measures to provide the Sibiu mint with metal, and decided that new coinage
would be struck. This had to do, therefore, with preparations for war. See his letters dated
October 29, 30, and 31 (two) (Ibid., nos. 3046–3049, pp. 547–550).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 103

he was about to commit, and declared that Vlad had “no intention of main-
taining loyalty towards our lord, the King, and towards us,” as he had prom-
ised. Ladislas was furious over Vlad’s treaty with the Turks, and the Wallachian
prince’s ambition to recover Amlaș and Făgăraș. Consequently, Ladislas
Hunyadi, who had inherited his father’s offices (Count of Bistriţa, Royal
Constable, and Captain General of the Kingdom), announced to the people of
Brașov that the king, wishing to defend this region, had dispatched to them a
certain Dan, with the title of voievod, to confront the voievod Vlad. His charge
was “to expel [Vlad Dracula] from his country and reign in his place.”54
The burghers of Brașov accordingly welcomed the pretender Dan, just
as those of Sibiu, in late February 1457, hosted at Amlaș another claimant
to the Wallachian throne, the future Vlad IV, whose epithet was “the Monk”
(1482–1495).55

“To Rule and Govern Accordingly”

The installation of pretenders to the Wallachian throne at Amlaș and Brașov

violated the letter and spirit of the treaties Dracula concluded with the Saxons
in September 1456. The reasons for this rupture were many. First on the list
must have been the production of new Wallachian coinage, in 1456–1457.
Pertinent here is a silver ban of 0.40 grams, anepigraphic (i.e., with no refer-
ence to the issuing source), similar to Vladislav II’s ducats, and with a high
percentage of pure metal. Depicted on the reverse is an eagle with extended
wings and a cross in its beak; on the obverse is a star with a long tail represent-
ing Halley’s Comet, which was visible in Europe as of June 8, 1456 (figs. 13–14).56
This money was worth more than the corresponding devalued Hungarian coins
and its issuance marked a break in the monetary union between Hungary and
Wallachia, operative since 1424. Under the latter convention, the Wallachian
princes effectively had the right to mint their own coinage, in their capacity as

54  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. LXXXI, p. 46; Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 3056, p.
555.
55  Vlad the Monk is said to be a son of Vlad Dracul, as is another pretender in 1481 called
Mircea. This is a rather curious situation, in which illegitimate sons are bearing the same
first names as the legitimate. There are no parallel cases in Wallachia in the medieval
period.
56  Iliescu, “Vlad l’Empaleur et le droit monétaire,” 125–127.
104 CHAPTER 4

Hungarian vassals, but it had to be aligned with that of their suzerain.57 In con-
trast, Vlad’s initiative—exactly like that of Vladislav II before him—was felt to
be a declaration of independence and a betrayal, clear proof of which was king
Ladislas’ decision to strike new coinage in October 1456.
A second reason for the rupture was Vlad’s resolve to recover the two
Transylvanian fiefs, an agenda which harmed the interests of Ladislas Hunyadi
and the Sibiu burghers. Relations between Wallachia and the Saxons had dete-
riorated during the winter of 1456–1457, but had not yet devolved to an armed
confrontation. On March 14, 1457, crafting diplomacy with measured threats,
Dracula sent a missive to the mayor and judges of Sibiu taking stock of their
relationship. The prince reminded them of the numerous treaties of alliance
and friendship which existed between them.58 He noted that despite all these
oaths, they sheltered a claimant to the Wallachian throne, an ecclesiastic (pop)
claiming to be the son of a voievod. Furthermore, this pop had had the audaci-
ty to confer, in the burghers’ presence, the customs revenues of the Wallachian
cities Rucăr and Brăila on two noble Saxons, namely greav (Count) Peter Geréb
of Roșia and Peterman, a patrician from Sibiu.59 Dracula reports that he him-
self had nearly been assassinated in their territory in 1452–1453, and that after
he single-handedly secured the throne in 1456, a “good and inviolable” peace
treaty was concluded, one clause of which required mutual assistance against
enemies. Finally, he states that the installation of a pretender at Amlaș violated
their treaty, as did the various plots being hatched against him at Sibiu. Vlad
ends his missive by invoking God as his witness, and prays them to respond
to him quickly as regards their will to preserve, or alternatively discard, their

57  Constantin Moisil, “Istoria monetei în România [History of coins in Romania],” Cronica
numismatică și arheologică 2, nos. 6–8 (1921): 34–35; Iliescu, “Ducaţi necunoscuţi,” 263.
58  Ligas et iuramenta inter nos habemus, fide firmissima roboratas; vivente nostra eas ullo
nunquam tempore frangere deberet, uti erga vos et apud nos in literis expressius haben-
tur (Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. CCLIX, pp. 318–319, with quote on p. 318; Gündisch, ed.,
Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 3070, pp. 566–567, with quote on p. 566).
59  For these two personages, see Gustav Gündisch, “Zur deutschen Vergangenheit von
Câmpulung (Langenau),” Deutsche Forschung im Südosten 1 (1942): 253–259; Pavel Binder,
“Itinerarul transilvan al lui Vlad Ţepeș [The Transylvanian itinerary of Vlad the Impaler],”
Revista de istorie 27 (1974): 1538–1540; and Daniel Barbu, “Formarea elitelor din Țara
Româneascǎ în secolul XV. Un studiu de caz: Peterman din Câmpulung [The formation
of elites in Wallachia in the fifteenth century. A case study: Peterman of Câmpulung],”
Arhiva Genealogică 2, nos. 3–4 (1995): 5–9. This Peterman of Câmpulung (Langenau) in
Wallachia was the uncle of Peterman from Sibiu, and had a brother in Wiener Neustadt,
the goldsmith Siegmund Wallach (d. 1451).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 105

peace treaty. Should they fail to reply, the prince guaranteed that he would
know very well how to reign and govern accordingly.60
The burghers of Sibiu did not shift course. And Vlad Dracula translated the
concept of “reigning and governing” into concrete action. In the spring of 1457,
he launched a brutal attack north of the Carpathians:

… he had villages and castles in Siebenbürgen [Transylvania] near

Hermannstadt [Sibiu] burned, and [other] villages and castles in Sieben­
bürgen were burned to ashes, namely Klosterholz [Cașolt], Neudorf
[Noul Săsesc] and Holzmengen [Hosman].61

This information is contained in the first German account of Dracula, i.e. the
Geschichte Dracole Waide [History of Voievod Dracula], printed in Vienna in
1463. The passage quoted above illustrates well the mentality of its author.
Dracula’s campaign in Siebenbürgen (which term, in the fifteenth century, re-
fers only to the Sibiu region) is presented as the gratuitous cruelty of a tyrant,
with no explication or clarification of cause. But in reality, it was the properties
of the aforementioned two notable Saxons which Vlad attacked and burned
in this lightning campaign. To better understand this military action, we must
bear in mind that the law of the land forbade refugee Vlachs from selling their
properties, and such sales were declared null and void. Moreover, anyone buy-
ing such properties incurred capital punishment.62 In any case, having accom-
plished this, Vlad would recover Amlaș to the chagrin of the Sibiu burghers,
who had held it since 1453.
After Sibiu, Dracula turned his sights to Brașov:

He had Beckendorf [Bod?] in Burzenland [Ţara Bârsei] burned. The men,

women and children, large and small, whom he did not immediately

60  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. CCLIX, p. 319; Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 3070, p.
566.
61  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 310, Episode 3. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 3, pp. 94
[German]/95 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their In Search
of Dracula (1994), Episode 3, p. 193. Cf. Michael Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, Appendix,
p. 319, ll. 54–59. For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and
trans. McDonald, ll. 54–59, p. 200. For the original German with facing French translation,
see ed. and trans. Cazacu, ll. 54–59, pp. 108 [German]/109 [French].
62  See in this regard Ion Donat, “Le Domaine princier rural en Valachie (XIVe–XVIe siècle),”
Revue roumaine d’histoire 6, no. 2 (1967): 201–231, and his enlarged version in Romanian,
Domeniul domnesc, 103–104. Also Gündisch, “Cu privire la relaţiile lui Vlad Ţepeș cu
Transilvania,” 686–687, and Binder, “Itinerarul transilvan al lui Vlad Ţepeș,” 1538–1540.
106 CHAPTER 4

burn, he brought with him to Wallachia bound in chains and had them
all impaled.63

The attack against Beckendorf in the Ţara Bârsa area was also carefully tar-
geted. Indeed, it would seem that it was there that the detested pretender Dan
has been residing, since the previous winter.
In reality, these incursions were part of a much wider scale confrontation
which engulfed all of Transylvania and Hungary. After János Hunyadi died in
August 1456, his political legacy passed to his widow, Elizabeth; his brother-
in-law, Michael Szilágyi; and his eldest son, Ladislas Hunyadi. This party con-
tinued its opposition to that of the magnates and barons, led by Ulrich of
Cilli, Ladislaus Garai, and Nicholas Újlaki, the voievod of Transylvania. The
magnates supported the young king Ladislas the Posthumous and dominated
Hungary; the Hunyadi party, in turn, rested on the lesser and middle nobility.
The Saxons and Szlekers supported King Ladislas, and thus the Romanian
nobles of Transylvania and the Banat remained faithful to the Hunyadi clan.
In the meantime, the magnate party persuaded the king that Ladislas
Hunyadi was plotting to rob him of the throne. Hunyadi responded forcefully
to the attack, and had the opposing party’s leader, Ulrich of Cilli, assassinated.
Furious at this, the king ordered Hunyadi’s execution. On March 16, 1457 he was
decapitated, and the same fate was intended for his fourteen year old brother
Matthias. Fortunately for him, the king wasn’t able to carry out his plans, and
he withdrew to Prague bringing Matthias along as his prisoner.
The Hunyadi party’s actions ignited the whole country. In summer 1457,
the Saxons of Bistriţa revolted against Michael Szilágyi, their new count, who
had abolished their ancient liberties and privileges. He responded by burn-
ing the city and expelling the rebel leaders. The king’s partisans—the count of
the Szlekers, and the Saxons of Sibiu and Brașov—attempted an intervention
against Michael Szilágyi, but this failed. The latter besieged the city of Sibiu,
which resisted, then proceeded to Sighișoara, which ended up submitting and
then rallying around him. He then left on campaign against the count of the
Szlekers, who had taken refuge in Brașov.

63  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 310, Episode 4. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 4, pp. 94
[German]/95 [French]. For McNally and Florescu’s English translation, see their In
Search of Dracula (1994), Episode 4, p. 193. Also Michael Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula,
Appendix p. 319, ll. 61–64. For the original German with parallel English translation, see
ed. and trans. McDonald, ll. 61–64, p. 200. For the original German with facing French
translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, ll. 61–64, pp. 108 [German]/109 [French].
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 107

Vlad had opted for the party of Hunyadi and intended to remain loyal, even
after the death of János’s eldest son. Thus his spring 1457 incursions against
Sibiu and Brașov are not unrelated to the civil war which was tearing Hungary
apart, even if the Wallachian prince had his own scores to settle with the Saxon
patriciate.64
Worried by the growing magnitude of this conflict, the king sent a mediator
to Transylvania with instructions to negotiate peace, or at least a truce, between
the belligerents. Their negotiations took place in Sighișoara, Vlad Dracula’s
birthplace. Representing Vlad were his cupbearer Stoica; the jupan Stan, son
of Negrea; and a certain Dan. At length a truce of just over two months (from
November 23, 1457 to February 2, 1458) was worked out and signed between
Elizabeth, Michael Szilágyi, and Vlad Dracula, on the one side, and the par-
tisans of the king and and the Saxon burghers, on the other. By this accord,
Brașov agreed to expel the pretender Dan and not to provide him any further
aid. The Saxons recognized their wrongs and proposed to pay 10,000 gold flo-
rins in damages to Michael Szilágyi.65
A week later, on December 1, 1457, Vlad apprised the Brașov burghers of his
acceptance of the truce negotiated by Michael Szilágyi. He consequently de-
cided that:

All the routes will be open so that your people may come to our coun-
try freely to buy and sell, without any concerns or harm, just as they do
in your country. Likewise our men will be able circulate freely in your
land, without any harm, as my master and brother Michael Szilágyi has
decreed. However, I accept these conditions only for the duration of his
peace with you.66

The terms of this treaty were important for Wallachia. Vlad renounced his
commercial restrictions and restored to the people of Brașov their privilege of
freely circulating and trading in Wallachia, free of taxation. By the same token,
he exacted the same liberty for Wallachian merchants, a reciprocity which
Vladislav II and his predecessors had striven for in vain.

64  Gündisch, “Cu privire la relaţiile lui Vlad Ţepeș,” 687ff.

65  Ibid., 688–689.
66  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. LXXI, pp. 93–94, with quote on p. 93. For
the exact date of this letter, see Gündisch, “Cu privire la relaţiile lui Vlad Ţepeș,” 689–690.
108 CHAPTER 4

An analogous treaty was signed between the Hunyadi party and the bur-
ghers of Sibiu.67 Wallachia was not included in this treaty, however, and new
conflicts would arise on this account.

Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary (1458)

The same day the truce went into effect, King Ladislas the Posthumous sud-
denly died in Prague. Not yet eighteen, he’d led a life cast about between his
mother, his great uncle, Emperor Frederic II of Hapsburg, and the magnates of
Hungary. He had ascended the throne in 1453, at the age of thirteen, effectively
powerless. Thereafter he was compelled to witness a civil war which festered,
then erupted openly, between the factions of the nobility.
Ladislas Hunyadi’s execution hadn’t disarmed his clan which, on January
24, 1458, secured the election of Hunyadi’s second son, the fifteen year old
Matthias, as king of Hungary. His uncle, Michael Szilágyi, took the title of
“Governor of the Kingdom” for the remaining five years of Matthias’ minority.
After tumultuous deliberations, the Hungarian Diet imposed a rigorous
Wahlcapitulation on the young king, a text with numerous clauses which he
had to accept as the price for his election. The king was bound, for example, to
ensure the defense of the country at his own expense and with his own troops.
He could not ask the lay or ecclesiastical nobility to levy troops except in cir-
cumstances of extreme danger. This measure, which considerably reduced his
freedom of action in foreign policy initiatives, was dictated in reaction to János
Hunyadi’s campaigns against the Turks, which had cost the country enormous
sums. Their effectiveness was questionable, in that Hungary directly abutted
the Ottomans on its southern frontiers—with no buffer states (e.g., the des-
potate of Serbia) for protection—, and the restless Wallachian and Moldavian
princes were more loyal to Hunyadi himself than to the kingdom of Hungary.
Matthias was extremely wealthy. He inherited from his father the greatest
fortune in Hungary—more than two million hectares of lands, towns, and
cities. And he could count on a considerable network of loyal followers from
the Romanian nobility of Transylvania and the Banat.68 However, Emperor

67  See John Gereb of Rosia’s letter of December 5, 1457 to the Sibiu municipal council, where
he speaks of “the peace concluded these days between our lord [Michael Szilágyi], us, and
you” (Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 5, no. 3094, pp. 581–582, with quote on p. 582).
68  Ignaz A. Fessler and Ernst Klein, Geschichte von Ungarn, vol. 3, Die Zeit der Könige
von Matthias I. bis Maximilian, 2nd ed., emended and edited by Ernst Klein (Leipzig:
Brockhaus, 1874), 7–10.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 109

Frederick III held in his possession the Holy Crown of Hungary, and refused to
surrender it. In this he was supported by the magnate party which had vainly op-
posed Matthias’ election, and never ceased to plot against him. Consequently,
Matthias set the recovery of the crown as his top priority, since this was the
only remaining insignia he needed to assure his legitimacy as king.69 And to
do this he absolutely needed to pacify the realm, neutralize the magnates, and
curb the military ardor of his uncle, who was impatiently chomping at the bit
to cross swords with the Turks.
The pacification of the kingdom occurred through the reestablishment of
royal authority in Transylvania, first and foremost on the southern border. On
March 3, 1458, Matthias ordered the Saxons of Sibiu to cease their hostilities
against Vlad and even take responsibility for the “pain and damage” which the
Wallachian voievod had inflicted on them. The king announced to them that
he had sent a letter along the same lines to Dracula, but that if they did not
comply, they should not expect any aid and would be solely responsible for
their misfortunes.70
An event contemporary with this warning provides further insight into
Matthias’ determination. On December 24, 1456, the Serbian despot George
Branković died and was succeeded by his youngest son Lazar. The latter’s broth-
ers, Gregory and Stephen, were considered disqualified having been blinded by
Murad II in 1441. In such a power vacuum, the Turkish threat on the southern
frontier became particularly acute. In addition, Michael Szilágyi decided to re-
attach the remains of the despotate to the Hungarian kingdom, notably the
fortresses of Belgrade and Semendria. He wrote in this regard to Juan Carvajal,
cardinal of St. Angelo in Foro Piscium, asking that he organize a new crusade
against the Turks, who had claims on the despotate. Furious that this initiative
would hamper his various projects, Matthias Corvinus decided to rid himself of
his uncle’s cumbersome tutelage. In June 1458, he dismissed Szilágyi as Governor
of Hungary, and relegated him to Transylvania, where he held the title of
Count of Bistriţa. The personal reign of Matthias had begun.
Appalled by his fall into disfavor, Michael Szilágyi approached the magnate
party which was hostile to the king and, on July 26, concluded a lifelong pact of

69  The history of this “recovery” and the conflicts which preceded and followed it have been
studied by Karl Nehring, Matthias Corvinus, Kaiser Friedrich III. und das Reich: Zum hun-
yadisch-habsburgischen Gegensatz im Donauraum, Südosteuropäische Arbeiten, vol. 72
(Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1975).
70  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3108, p. 7. Three days later, Michael Szilágyi sent
them an identical letter, which proves the importance of this affair (Ibid., no. 3109, p. 7).
110 CHAPTER 4

mutual defense with Nicholas Újlaki and Ladislas Garai. The pact was directed
against any enemy whatsoever.71
Confronted with this new threat, Matthias responded first by improving his
relations with the Transylvanian Saxons. The burghers of Cluj, Brașov, and then
the Stühle each in turn saw their privileges confirmed and defended vis-à-vis the
Transylvanian nobles—receiving tax exemptions, and obtaining royal pardon
for acts of violence committed throughout the previous year’s troubles.72
Finally, on the following September 10, the king sent an ambassador to Vlad
Dracula in the person of Benedict of Boythor.73 His mission was delicate. He
had to explain to the voievod the disgrace which had befallen the king’s uncle,
the politics of appeasing the magnates and Transylvanian Saxons, and above
all to ask for his aid against the Turks—but without giving any precise commit-
ment as to the action required for this enterprise. Meanwhile, events in Serbia
had taken a dramatic turn. On January 20, 1458, Despot Lazar died, and the
reigns of power passed to three people who were divided on what policy to fol-
low. Helena Palaiologina, the despot’s widow, and Lazar’s brother, Stephen the
Blind, were inclined towards Hungary. On the other hand, Michael Angelović,
the great voievod and commander of the army—and Christian brother of
the Ottoman grand vizier, Mahmud Pasha Angelović—decisively favored the
Turks. Michael was arrested by Helena Palaiologina’s followers and sent into
captivity in Hungary.
Mehmed II’s reaction was brutal. Just before leaving on a “routine campaign”
to the Morea, he dispatched Mahmud Pasha with an army to Serbia, to re-
store the situation. The violent campaign stretched out over four months,
and brought the Serbian despotate nearly to an end. Mahmud occupied most
of the remaining free fortresses, threatened Belgrade, and entered Golubac,
on the Danube, around mid-August. Only Semendria was miraculously spared
from the Ottoman steamroller. Rather than overplay his hand, Mahmud then
withdrew to Kosovo.74

71  Michael Szilágyi’s letter to Cardinal Juan Carvajal was published in MHH AE, vol. 4 [A],
no. 11, pp. 15–16. For the pact of July 26, see Teleki, ed., Hunyadiak kora Magyarországon,
vol. 10, p. 592.
72  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3105, pp. 5–6; nos. 3124–3127, pp. 15–18; no. 3129,
pp. 19–20; nos. 3135–3137, pp. 24–26; no. 3142, p. 29.
73  Ibid., no. 3141, pp. 28–29.
74  For a description of Mahmud Pasha’s campaign, see Nicolae Iorga, Geschichte des
Osmanischen Reiches nach den Quellen dargestellt, vol. 2, Bis 1538 (Gotha: Friedrich
Andreas Perthes, 1909), 107; Jireček, Geschichte der Serben, vol. 2, 210–213; John W. Fine,
“A Tale of Three Fortresses: Controversies Surrounding the Turkish Conquest of
Smederevo, of an Unnamed Fortress at the Junction of Sava and Bosna, and of Bobovac,”
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 111

In his biography of Mehmed II, Franz Babinger was perplexed as to why

Mahmud Pasha failed to besiege Semendria, and broke off the Serbian
campaign.75 An important source on the matter seems to have escaped the
great German Ottomanist,76 namely an anonymous chronicle written by a
Venetian present in Constantinople in 1458. Here the grand vizier’s retreat is
linked to a defeat which a certain Vlad inflicted upon him:

At that time [1458], before leaving Edirne for the Morea, the Great Lord
sent Mahmud Pasha, his chief minister, with 30,000 Turks to monitor traf-
fic on the Danube, to prevent the Hungarians from crossing and pillag-
ing their country. After Mahmud Pasha arrived there and had gathered
intelligence, he decided to continue on to Hungary, and entered the ter-
ritory of Wallachia, which was then tributary [to the Turks]. [One day]
before sunrise, he arrived at a fortress [castello], which he captured and
plundered. He led away 5,000 Christians [into slavery]. Returning to the
Danube with the booty, the pasha crossed with about half the Turks,
while the rest stayed waiting with the booty. Then God allowed Dracula
to arrive [in the area], with around 5,000 Hungarians and Wallachians.
Having learned what had happened, he pursued the enemies and con-
fronted them at dawn, with the result that out of 18,000 Turks less than
8,000 were able to escape. The rest were drowned or cut to pieces, and
all the captives were recovered. Fearing that the Hungarians had even
greater numbers of forces [at their disposal], Mahmud Pasha fled with
his army and went to Sofia. And he immediately sent a messenger to the

in Peace and War in Byzantium: Essays in Honor of George T. Dennis, eds. Timothy S. Miller
and John W. Nesbitt (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995),
181–190.
75  Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time, ed. William H. Hickman, trans.
Ralph Manheim, Bollingen Series, vol. 96 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978),
155–156. The original German was published in 1953 (i.e., Mehmed der Eroberer und seine
Zeit: Weltenstürmer einer Zeitenwende [Munich: F. Bruckmann]).
76  We mentioned this in an article published in 1982, based on conclusions in our 1979 doc-
toral thesis on Dracula. See Matei Cazacu, “Les Ottomans sur le Bas-Danube au XVe siecle:
Quelques précisions,” Südost-Forschungen 41 (1982): 33–41. Reprinted in Cazacu, Au car-
refour des Empires et des mers, 359–371. Citation here is to the 1982 publication. My contri-
bution escaped John Fine’s notice, and thus his findings (see above, note 74) are no more
advanced than Babinger’s. The same is true of Theocharis Stavrides’ The Sultan of Vezirs:
The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453–1474), The
Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, eds. Suraiya Faroqhi and Halil İnalcık, vol. 24 (Leiden:
Brill, 2001), 122–126.
112 CHAPTER 4

Grand Turk apprising him that that the Hungarians had crossed [the
Danube] with a very large army, and this news spread throughout the
whole country. Everyone was terrified to such an extent that whoever
could cross over to Anatolia was considered fortunate. That morning the
Grand Turk was in the Morea, and he took Corinth that night. When he
heard [Mahmud Pasha’s] news, he was furious and returned to Edirne.
At that time, I was in Constantinople. This city and Pera were emptied
of Turks, who had fled to Anatolia. If ten of our galleys had been there
[at the time], we could have reconquered Pera and Constantinople. But
because of our sins, no such glory could be won for the Christians.77

This confrontation probably occurred in the last days of August 1458, and
Turnu Severin must have been the city attacked by the Turks.78 Located in
Romanian territory, it had been occupied by the Hungarians since 1419–1420,
which accounts for the vagueness in the Venetian source.
One might have hoped that, following this brilliant victory over the Turks,
the young king would proceed with military operations in Hungary. Yet

77  La progenia della cassa d’Octomani, in Iorga, Acte și fragmente, vol. 3, p. 13. Iorga first pub-
lished the text (Venice, Bibl. Marciana, MS. It. VI, cod. 277 [= 5806], fol. 138). It was known
and copied almost word for word in the Historia Turchesca (1300–1514) (cf. Da Lezze, ed.
Ursu, 24–25), which has been attributed to Giovanni Maria Angiolello. In comparison
with the anonymous Venetian chronicler, what appears in the Historia Turchesca has
some differences in numbers and is incorporated within the events of 1462, and thus is
clearly confused with Mehmed II’s campaign in Wallachia. Also, the Venetian chronicler
specifies that in 1458 he was in Constantinople, and this autobiographical information is
eliminated in the Historia Turchesca. If Angiolello was indeed its author, this reworking
of the Venetian chronicler is understandable, since in 1458 Angiolello was a boy of seven,
and would not venture forth to the eastern Mediterranean until 1468, only to be captured
at the Battle of Negropont two years later by the Ottomans. But overall, as Ursu and oth-
ers have argued, it seems more plausible that the author of the Historia Turchesca was
Donado da Lezze. On this confusion, see most recently Pierre A. MacKay, “The Content
and Authorship of the Historia Turchesca,” in İstanbul Üniversitesi 550. yıl, Uluslararası
Bizans ve Osmanlı Sempozyumu (XV. yüzyıl): 30–31 Mayıs 2003 = 550th anniversary of the
Istanbul University, International Byzantine and Ottoman Symposium (XVth century): 30–31
May 2003, ed. Sümer Atasoy (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi, 2004), 213–222.
78  Cf. Ștefan Andreescu, “Vlad Vodǎ Țepeș și Mahmud pașa Grecul: Pe marginea unui izvor
controversat [Prince Vlad the Impaler and Mahmud Pasha the Greek: notes on a con-
troversial source],” Revista istorică, new series, vol. 15, no. 1–2 (2004): 81–88, and Eugen
Denize, “When did the Conflict between Vlad the Impaler and the Turks Break Out?,”
Revue roumaine d’histoire 45, nos. 1–4 (2006): 27–40. These authors argue that the conflict
commenced only in 1461–1462.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 113

entirely the opposite obtained. On October 8, Matthias Corvinus had his uncle
Michael Szilágyi arrested at Belgrade, and the Hungarian army made an about
face. Since it was Michael Szilágyi who ardently supported an anti-Ottoman
crusade, it’s likely that the king decided to quash any such enterprise.79
This, then, is the specific background to Matthias Corvinus’ dispatch of
Benedict of Boythor as ambassador to Wallachia on September 10. It is certain-
ly this embassy to which the Russian Skazanie o Drakule voevode alludes. This
contains information the author most likely obtained in Buda, in the king’s
entourage:

Another time he received a visit from an ambassador of the king of

Hungary, Matthias. The ambassador was a great noble of Polish origin.
Dracula ordered him to remain with him at table, amidst the corpses,
[before] a very large stake, tall and completely gilded. And Dracula asked
the ambassador: “Tell me, why have I had this stake placed here?” And the
ambassador, who was very afraid, responded: “Sire, it seems to me that
a great man has committed a crime in your eyes, and that you desire to
reserve for him a death more honorable than [a death normally reserved]
for others. And Dracula said to him: “You have spoken well. Indeed, you
are the royal ambassador of a great sovereign, and I have had this stake
made for you.” The ambassador responded: “Sire, if I have committed a
crime which merits death, do what seems good to you, because you are
an impartial judge and it is not you who will be responsible for my death,
but me alone.” Dracula burst out laughing and said to him: “If you had not
responded in this way, truly you would have been on this stake.” And he
honored him greatly, gave him many gifts, and let him leave, saying: “You
can truly be the ambassador of great sovereigns, [on missions to other]
great sovereigns, because you have learned the art of speaking to great
sovereigns. However others shouldn’t dare [to do this], without having
learned to speak to great sovereigns.80

The initial coldness with which Vlad received the king’s ambassador is eas-
ily explicable. The Wallachian prince found himself in a most uncomfortable

79  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3145, p. 31; Iorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen
Reiches, vol. 2, 107.
80  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 361, Episode 11. For the orig-
inal Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 11, pp. 196
[Russian]/197 [French]. For a variant English translation, see McNally and Florescu,
In Search of Dracula (1994), Episode 11, pp. 204–205.
114 CHAPTER 4

situation. Abandoned by Matthias who had championed the Saxons, Dracula

knew that he would have to reckon with Mehmed’s violent reaction, since
he had massacred a part of his army. Benedict of Boythor diplomatically ex-
plained his master’s policy, his need to obtain the support of the Saxons, whom
he would once again shower with favors when the royal Diet convened on
December 6, at Szeged.81
The Diet received Frederick III’s ambassadors in order to find a solution to
the issue of the Hungarian crown, and also to discuss the prince of Bosnia’s
inheriting the despotate of Serbia, through his marriage to the daughter of
despot Lazar.82 The Diet ended its work on January 5, 1459, without reaching
a decision regarding the crown. Anarchy reigned unabated. On February 17,
more than twenty magnates elected Frederick III as king of Hungary, and pub-
lished a manifesto calling on the populace to recognize this election. Matthias
sent troops to prevent the coronation from taking place at Székesfehérvár
(Stuhlweissenburg, Alba Regia), but Frederick III’s alliance with George
Podiebrad, king of Bohemia, made his situation difficult. Finally, on March 4,
the ceremony took place in Wiener Neustadt. Frederick was henceforth estab-
lished as king of Hungary, and his descendants succeeded in occupying the
Hungarian throne down to 1527.
Civil war raged more fiercely than ever in Hungary, to the great chagrin of
Pope Pius II, whose efforts at organizing a Diet in Mantua were compromised,
and whose fresh appeals for a crusade fell on deaf ears.83

Vlad Dracula Alone Against Everyone

Vlad couldn’t pardon the Turks for the episode of Turnu Severin. Considering
himself wronged by the Ottoman invasion, he ceased paying them tribute,
as well as visiting the sultan’s court in person, as he had done in 1456–1458.
Parallel to this most fateful decision, and aimed at increasing his revenues,

81  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3143, pp. 29–30 (September 11); no. 3149 p. 34
(November 20); and no. 3151, pp. 35–36 (November 29).
82  Jireček, Geschichte der Serben, vol. 2, 213–214; Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, vol. 6,
no. 3151, p. 35.
83  Rigomera Eysser, “Papst Pius II. und der Kreuzzug gegen die Türken,” in Mélanges d’histoire
générale, ed. Constantin Marinescu, vol. 2 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Naţională, 1938),
1–133; Giuseppe Valentini, “La crociata di Pio II dalla documentazione veneta d’archivio,”
Archivum historiae pontificiae 13 (1975): 249–282; Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the
Levant (1204–1571), vol. 2, The Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical
Society, 1978), 196–270.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 115

Vlad launched a veritable commercial war against the Saxons of Brașov and
Sibiu. First of all, he issued new coin—a silver ducat of 0.60 grams, an exam-
ple of which was discovered at Târgsor, where Vlad constructed a church in
1461. According to numismatists, this coinage was struck in a new mint at
Bucharest, which Dracula established as the country’s capital in 1459 (his first
charter issued there is dated September 20). A kind of “crusading ducat,” this
coinage was intended to pay mercenaries to ensure the defense of Wallachia
against an Ottoman attack. Indicative here is the sovereign’s depiction on the
obverse: standing, crowned, holding a long cross in his right hand, and cross-
bearing orb (globus cruciger) in his left. Its model was Byzantine, inaugurated
by emperor Justinian I (527–565), and replicated by Heraclius (610–641) and
Isaac I Comnenus (1057–1059). An expert numismatist sees in Vlad’s ducat “the
typical representation of the Byzantine emperor in his double hypostasis as
defender of Christianity, and aspiring to universal domination.” On the reverse
is a bust of Jesus Christ—a standard representation of the βασιλεὺς βασιλέων
[basileus basileōn], or “king of kings,” an image already adopted by Mircea I
the Old between 1400 and 1418.84
In addition to issuing new coinage, Vlad prohibited the merchants of Brașov
and Sibiu from freely circulating in Wallachia, and limited their buying and
selling activity to three cities: Câmpulung, Târgșor, and Târgoviște. Clearly,
these Wallachian cities all held the staple right.85
This measure unleashed new difficulties on the frontiers, since the
Transylvanian Saxons did not accept these restrictions and continued their ac-
tivity in Wallachia as before. The outcome of this is known from a letter, dated
April 2, 1459, sent by the pretender Dan to the councillors of Brașov and Ţara
Bârsei. Herein Dan entitles himself “prince of all Wallachia,” and claims he was
sent by Matthias Corvinus to Brașov and the Ţara Bârsei area to investigate the
Saxons’ complaints about Dracula. Dan accuses Dracula of being “the Turks’
man,” and of being counselled by the devil whom he has within him (here an
untranslatable play on words):

84  Iliescu, “Ducaţi necunoscuţi,” 277–278.

85  Manolescu, Comerţul Ţării Românești și Moldovei cu Brașovul, 54–56; Gündisch, “Cu pri-
vire la relaţiile lui Vlad Ţepeș cu Transilvania,” 684–686; Cazacu, “L’Impact ottoman,”
188–189; and against this hypothesis, Șerban Papacostea, “Începuturile politicii comer-
ciale a Ţării Românești și Moldovei (secolele XIV–XVI): drum și stat [The beginnings of
the commercial policy of Wallachia and Moldavia (fourteenth-sixteenth century): road
and state],” in his Geneza statului în Evul Mediu românesc: Studii critice [Genesis of the
Romanian state in the Middle Ages: Critical studies] (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Dacia, 1988),
186 ff. Reprinted from Studii si materiale de istorie medie 10 (1983): 9–56. Page references
are to the 1988 edition.
116 CHAPTER 4

He arrested all the merchants of Brașov and the Bârsa land—who had
come peacefully to Wallachia—and confiscated their goods. Not con-
tent with their wealth, he arrested and impaled forty-one persons. This
still was not sufficient for him, and, possessed even more by the devil,
he assembled three-hundred young boys from Brașov and the Bârsa land
who were at Târgoviște and all the cities of Wallachia. Having assembled
them, he impaled some, and others he burned. And his own men who
were at Brașov he summoned back [in secret] to himself.86

Faced with these commercial disputes between Vlad and the Saxons of Brașov,
Matthias Corvinus reacted, as did his predecessors, by permitting a pretender
to style himself as prince of Wallachia, and install himself in Transylvania near
the Wallachian border.87
Vlad’s reign had reached a dangerous turning point. Attempting to defend
his country against Ottoman invasions, he had entered into conflict with
Mehmed II. His actions to protect the Wallachian merchants, and the econ-
omy of his country in general, had now cost him the hostility of the Saxons,
and indirectly that of king Matthias Corvinus. The latter was now permitting
two claimants to his throne—Dan and Basarab—to reside in Transylvania.
However there was worse. Indeed, in a letter of this same Dan, which pre-
cedes his dispatch of April 2, 1459, the pretender announced to the burghers
of Brașov:

Know that I am sent by the king and all the nobles, and that my mas-
ter the king has given me the country of Transylvania, Bârsa, and the
Szlekers, so they can come with me to recover my country.88

And he expected them to provide arms and clothes because, he added,

“My army is naked.” In February-March of the same year, Dan had already

86  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. LXXXIX, pp. 101–102 (Slavonic);
no. CCLXVIII, pp. 324–325 (Latin). The translated quote supra is from the Slavonic ver-
sion. Cf. Treptow’s English translation, in his Vlad III Dracula, 104.
87  In January 1459, a second pretender, Basarab, was found at Sighișoara, where he was
offering aid to the burghers of Brașov. Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile,
no. CCLXXIV, pp. 330–331; Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3168, pp. 45–46.
88  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. XLLL, pp. 102–103, with translated quote
on p. 102.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 117

announced to the same burghers his intention of proceeding to the emperor-

king (Frederick III) and on this occasion he asked for their financial help.89
Finally, on April 3, Matthias Corvinus prohibited the burghers of Brașov
from exporting arms to Wallachia, an additional sign of the tension which
reigned between the two princes.90
Under these circumstances, we can easily imagine the confused state of
Vlad with his boyars, the latter of whom could not have looked kindly on the
impasse to which their voievod’s intransigence had led them. Some of them
must have been proposing peace with the sultan, who at any moment could at-
tack Wallachia and demand the unpaid tribute. In the end, however, their fears
were unfounded, since Mehmed II contented himself with taking Semendria
and some other fortresses. Thus the medieval Serbian state was brought to
an end, and a newly independent Serbia would not emerge for three and a
half centuries. Other boyars favored concluding an armistice with Matthias
Corvinus and the Saxons, which would entail abandoning claims on Amlaș
and Făgăraș, and reestablishing free trade in Wallachia. And finally there were
some others, no doubt, who cherished the idea of a change of prince.

Bloody Easter

Vlad saw his position weakening in his very own country. He had to respond,
particularly given his quite fixed ideas about the status of the “sovereign.” His
plan of action had the merit of simplicity: Get rid of all potential traitors and
replace them with loyal followers. To quickly put this plan into action, he or-
ganized a grand Easter Sunday banquet in the palace of Târgoviște, which in
1459 fell on March 25. In the 1463 German Geschichte Dracole Waide, the scene
is described as follows:

He invited all his territorial lords and noblemen in his land to his house,
and when the meal was finished, he then turned to the oldest lord and
asked how many voievods or lords he remembered who had ruled in that
same land. One answered, as many as he could think of. And the other
lords, young and old, answered the same, and they asked one another,

89  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. LXXVIII, pp. 100–101; Gündisch, ed.,
Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3175, pp. 49–50. Let’s recall that Frederick III had been pro-
claimed king of Hungary on February 17, 1459.
90  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3177, pp. 51–52.
118 CHAPTER 4

how many such lords could they think of? One answered fifty; another
thirty; another twenty; another twelve; and none of the youngest spoke
of [less than] seven. Thus [Dracula] had all these lords impaled, and they
numbered five hundred lords in all.91

The minstrel Michael Beheim, who knew the aforementioned German pam-
phlet but possessed other sources of information, is more expansive as well as
precise on the subject:

When this question was fully answered / (as I have now sung it to you), /
Dracula said: “Tell me, / how is it that you / have had so many rulers
and lords / in your domain? / The cause for this disgrace must / be your
shameful defiance!”92

Michael Beheim had not invented this monologue. His key informant, a
Benedictine monk from Târgoviște who had taken refuge in Wiener Neustadt,
knew well the affairs of Wallachia. And he appears to be apprised of the ap-
proximate content of what was said at court variously through popular stories,
or from high officials.
This episode is especially interesting as regards the sense of the term
“prince.” To whom exactly are the boyars referring? From seven (the exact
number if one considers the successive princes since the death of Mircea the
Old in 1420) to fifty, the range is impressive. Dracula included, there were fif-
teen princes who reigned over Wallachia since the state was founded in the
early fourteenth century. But perhaps we should understand the term “prince”
not in the classic sense, but rather as “change of princes,” and possibly also
“pretenders to the throne.” Even with a sound knowledge of the country’s his-
tory, the oldest boyars couldn’t have known of more than nineteen regime
changes, and a handful of pretenders exiled in Transylvania or the Ottoman
Empire. But obviously we are dealing with exaggeration, and any response the
boyars might give would be fatal. After all, given Dracula’s mentality, citing

91  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 313, Episode 21. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 21, pp. 98
[German]/99 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their In Search
of Dracula (1994), Episode 20 [sic], p. 196.
92  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix p. 330, ll. 469–476. For
the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald,
ll. 469–476, pp. 212. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed. and
trans. Cazacu, ll. 469–476, pp. 126 [German]/127 [French].
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 119

the name of even one previous prince would suffice to raise suspicions of
nostalgia for bygone regimes.
One can only shudder at the figure of five hundred people impaled during
this memorable banquet, given at the princely palace in Târgoviște. But let us
stop and note, first of all, that this “festive gathering” could not have taken
place outside, since the date was March 25. We should also consider the di-
mensions of the palace great hall, which, though currently in ruins, has been
excavated by archaeologists.93 It measures an unimpressive twelve meters
long, and seven meters wide. In the lengthwise direction, no more than two
tables would have fit; in the widthwise direction, where the prince would have
sat, there would have been but one. The guests seated on the benches must
have taken up around a meter of space each—wrapped in their fur-lined caf-
tans, with the portliness of medieval lords who avidly consumed meat, game,
and wine. Even if the two tables were ten meters long each (and space obvious-
ly was needed for servers dealing with food), and guests were seated on both
sides, most likely only around forty people could be accommodated. Including
those dining at the voievod’s table—namely Vlad, the metropolitan (who sat
at his right), and a few other favorites—, the assembly couldn’t have numbered
more than fifty in all.
Still in all, the news of fifty massacred boyars must have caused quite a
sensation at the time! Curiously, however, aside from the 1463 German pam-
phlet, no other contemporary source mentions this episode. There are, to be
sure, accounts of how Vlad destroyed his “enemies”—men, women, and chil-
dren impaled, burned alive, buried to the neck and shot with arrows, boiled
in cauldrons, hung or decapitated, etc. But as for his execution of the boyars,
the only additional indication, as previously discussed, is the composition
of the princely councils. Of the twenty three members recorded in Vlad
Dracula’s various councils, eleven completely disappear from the documents,
which is a stunning percentage.94
This execution of boyars after an Easter banquet appears in one late
source—a variant of the old Wallachian chronicle which was revised and
translated into Romanian in the seventeenth century:

93  Nicolae Constantinescu and Cristian Moisescu, Curtea domnească din Târgoviște [The
princely court of Târgoviște], Monumentele patriei noastre (Bucharest: Meridiane, 1965),
26–30.
94  Stoicescu, Vlad Ţepeș, 44–45; Vlad Ţepeș: Prince of Wallachia, 29–30.
120 CHAPTER 4

The voievod Vlad Tepelus.

He built the castle of Poienari and also the Holy Monastery of
Snagov. He also did something against the inhabitants of Târgoviște, hav-
ing learned that the boyars of Târgoviște had buried his brother alive.
On Easter Day, when all the inhabitants were celebrating and dancing
in the round, he captured them all without warning. And he impaled all
the old people throughout the whole city. And he brought the young men
together with their wives, the boys and the girls, to Poienari—still in their
festive attire. He made them work on the castle until their clothes were
torn and tattered, and they were completely naked. This is why he was
given the name Tepelus.95

Let us observe, here, that the context is totally different, as are the victims. It is
clear, nonetheless, that the author of this version knew that there was a castle
Poienari (figs. 17 and 18), and that Vlad had impaled some boyars on an Easter
Sunday. But he’s added here a disturbing element: the discovery of the body
of Mircea, Vlad’s older brother, who was assassinated along with his father in
1447. In the Orthodox world, bodies were exhumed after one, three, five, or
seven years to verify their state of decomposition. A body found intact, or with
its head turned facing the earth, would signify that the cadaver had become
“un-dead,” that is a vampire. In which case it would be necessary to drive a
hawthorn stake into its heart, and then accord it a decent burial. We’ll consider
such themes in greater detail later on.
Let’s turn now to the Athenian historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles, who was
born 1423–1430, and died in 1474.96 A member of Mahmud Pasha’s entourage,
Chalkokokndyles composed a well-informed work on the decline of Byzantium
and rise of the Ottomans. His depiction of Vlad Dracula is rather different:

It was the sultan [i.e., Mehmed II] who had entrusted Vlad [III] … with
the rule of Wallachia. With the sultan’s assistance, Vlad, the son of Dracul,

95  
Letopiseţul Cantacuzinesc, eds. Grecescu and Simonescu, 205.
96  
Matei Cazacu, “Les Parentés byzantines et ottomanes de l’historien Laonikos
Chalkokondyle (c. 1423–c. 1470),” Turcica 16 (1984): 95–114. Reprinted in Cazacu, Au carre-
four des Empires et des mers, 425–441. Citation here is to the 1984 publication. See also Jean
Michel Cantacuzène and Cazacu, “Généalogie et empire: Les Cantacuzène de l’époque
byzantine à l’époque ottomane,” in L’Empereur hagiographe: Culte des saints et monarchie
byzantine et post-byzantine. Actes des colloques internationaux “L’empereur hagiographe,”
13–14 mars 2000 et “Reliques et miracles,” 1–2 novembre 2000 tenus au New Europe College,
ed. Petre Guran with Bernard Flusin, Série des publications Relink du New Europe College
(Bucharest: Colegiul Noua Europă, 2001), 294–303. Reprinted in Cazacu, Au carrefour des
Empires et des mers, 467–476. Citation here is to the 2001 publication.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 121

set out to claim the principality. When he took over, he first created a
corps of bodyguards for himself, who lived with him, and then he sum-
moned separately each of the distinguished men of the realm who, it was
believed, had committed treason during the transfer of power there. He
killed them all by impalement, them and their sons, wives, and servants,
so that this one man caused more murder than any other about whom
we have been able to learn. In order to solidify his hold on power, they
say that in a short time he killed twenty thousand men, women, and chil-
dren. He established good soldiers and bodyguards for his own use, and
he granted them the money, property, and other goods of his victims, so
that he quickly effected a great change and utterly revolutionized the af-
fairs of Wallachia.97

Chalkokondyles doesn’t mention any collective massacre, but rather the ex-
ecution of “each of the distinguished men of the realm who, it was believed,
had committed treason during the transfer of power there.” His testimony is
important because it describes Vlad’s formation of a personal guard modeled
on the janissary troops of the Turkish sultans, and the latter’s custom of distrib-
uting goods confiscated from their victims to this elite force.
Who were the victims at this deadly banquet? In fact, we know little about
their identities. The vornic Codrea, missing in the prince’s council of March 5,
1458, was certainly one.98 The aged Manea, son of Udriște, probably suffered
the same fate, since he disappears after 1457.99 Perhaps also Milea the cup-
bearer. On the other hand, as of September 1459, surviving boyars included
Dragomir Ţacal, Voico Dobriţă, Stan vornic (son of Negrea), and Oprea (the

97  Translation here from Appendix, pp. 347–348. For the original Greek with facing English
translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.83, pp. 368 [Greek]/369 [English].
98  As of April 23, 1459 he was dead, and Matthias Corvinus made claim to his possessions
left at Brașov, which were valued at 3,000 gold florins (Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch,
vol. 6, no. 3179, pp. 53–54).
99  One wonders if he and his clan were victims of the collective massacre recorded in the
German pamphlet of 1463: “Item: He had a great [boyar] clan exterminated, from the
smallest to the largest, children, friends, brothers, sisters, and he had them all impaled”
(GDW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 311, Episode 7. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 7, pp. 94
[German]/95 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their In Search
of Dracula (1994), Episode 7, pp. 193–194). Nonetheless, Manea’s son Dragomir survived,
as did his sister and her husband, and likewise Manea’s sister and brother-in-law. Cf.
Florescu, Divanele domnești din Ţara Românească, 184. The execution of a pretender
named Albu the Great, mentioned in an act of April 1, 1551, should be dated to the reign of
Vlad Dracul.
122 CHAPTER 4

former chancellor). To these we may add the jupan Stepan Turcin, the con-
stable Gherghina and the cupbearer Stoica—all of whom are documented
in the council of March 5, 1458. Also alive were the stolnic Toxaba, the spătar
Moldovean, and Bratul of Milcov.
Continuing our review of the evidence, there is a passage in the 1463 German
pamphlet, namely Episode 7, which refers to the complete extermination of
a great noble clan, and which we can possibly collate with Michael Beheim’s
poem. The relevant passage in Beheim is a conversation between Vlad and
Brother Hans, guardian of the Catholic convent of Gornij Grad, who had taken
refuge in Târgoviște. The monk asks the prince why he has persecuted women,
children, and innocent babies:

The monk spoke: “You worthless devil, / You pitiless murderer! / You rag-
ing, frightful despot! / You spiller-of-blood and tyrant! / How you torture
poor souls! / What harm have pregnant women done / to deserve impale-
ment? / What did the little chilren ever do to you / that you would take
away their lives—/ some being three days old; / some not yet three hours
old? / These you command to be impaled, / though no one has done you
ill. / And you pour forth the blood / of the innocents. / What is the crime /
of those who had lost their lives, / whose pure and tender blood / you
spill prodigiously without cause? / Your murderous enmity amazes me. /
What is it that you are avenging? This / you should make clear to me.”

And Dracula replied:

… “This I shall / tell you straight away. / He who wishes to clear the ground
for plowing / should start things off properly. / This means not only cut-
ting down / thorns and weeds that have grown up, / but paying heed to
their roots. / For, if the roots are left behind, / in a year one will again
find / rude, malevolent thorns. / In these little children here, / I would
have created the gravest enemies, / had I let them grow to adulthood. /
No, I wish to weed them out now, / before they sprout roots. / Surely they
would resolve / to avenge their fathers.”100

On the strength of Brother Jacob’s testimony, Beheim then describes the hor-
rible punishment Vlad inflicted on Brother Hans the guardian:

100  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix pp. 338–339, ll. 742–780.
For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald,
ll. 742–780, pp. 220–221. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed.
and trans. Cazacu, ll. 742–780, pp. 138/140 [German], 139/141 [French].
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 123

Dracula grabbed the monk without delay / and began to impale him
himself—/ but not like the others. / The others got the pole / from the
rear end, but this time / he changed the place of impalement. / One pole
(or pike) / Dracula hammered into his brain. / [The monk’s head] was at
the bottom, and his feet / were facing upwards. / Dracula set the stake in
front of the monastery. / This frightened the poor monks greatly. / They
feared for their lives. / Some abandoned the place. / Brother Jacob, whom
I previously / mentioned, [traveled] with the ferryman to Styria. / He
went, in [Wiener] Neustadt, near / the court of our lord, the emperor
[Frederick III] / to a monastery as soon as he could. / I, myself, Michel
Beheim, / often visited this monk. / He told me about much wickedness /
that Dracula, the ruler, had wrought. / I have only versified for you a little
/ concerning this good-for-nothing.101

This unusual method of impalement must have inspired the painter who rep-
resented Dracula presiding over the crucifixion of Saint Andrew.
We can conclude then that the 1459 Easter Sunday massacre had primar-
ily affected boyars outside the circle of the princely council. This massive ex-
termination of potential opposition was something new at the time. It wasn’t
until the middle of the sixteenth century that this practice became standard in
Wallachia and Moldavia. And then the victims would be counted by the hun-
dreds, a figure far exceeding the number of Dracula’s killings.
In this 1459 episode, the numbers of Vlad’s victims alleged by his
contemporaries—500 in the German pamphlet, 20,000 in Chalkokondyles—
are clearly exaggerated, and result from confusion with the prince’s other vio-
lent actions.
Chalkokondyles also tells us that Vlad confiscated the possessions of his vic-
tims to give to his favorites—new men who were not part of the Wallachian
nobility. The German minstrel Michael Beheim, who had collected his infor-
mation from the aforementioned monk, is more explicit and offers us a strik-
ing picture of Vlad’s court:

Whoever was capable of conceiving the heights of wickedness, / that per-

son was his most trusted adviser. / He exercised political authority / with
the worst sort of thugs / that one might find on the earth. / These he held
in the highest regard. / No matter where they came from—/ be it Hungary,

101  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix pp. 339–340, ll. 791–816.
For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald,
ll. 791–816, pp. 221–222. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed.
and trans. Cazacu, ll. 791–816, pp. 140/142 [German], 141/143 [French].
124 CHAPTER 4

Serbia, / Turkey, or the land of the Tatars—/ he received them with open
arms. / His courtly custom was pure wildness. / Rare to find there dignity,
honor, and good breeding. / His rule was monstrous; / it was the image of
evil. / His servants and his courtly retinue / were so disloyal, pernicious, /
and false in all things / that no-one ever—at any time—/ could trust the
other. / They harbored no community, / for they had many customs / and
spoke all kinds of languages. / They were a conglomeration of peoples.
From many a land, / they had ridden to his court. / This is why one cannot
speak of any inclination / to be mindful of Dracula’s conduct—/ lack of
unity or accord was the cause. / His vices and wantonness, these / would
not have so long endured, / had there not been / disunity and discord—/
as I have now sung to you.102

Vlad thus surrounded himself with trusted men from all spheres, even Turks
and Tatars. His court must have resembled that of the Ottoman sultans, where
the languages spoken were notably Slavic, Greek, and last of all … Turkish!

“And Beheaded Him Near His Tomb …”

When Dracula was massacring his opponents in Wallachia and conducting

a commercial war against the Transylvanian Saxons, civil war was still tear-
ing apart Hungary, where Matthias Corvinus was pursuing his conflict with
Frederick III. At length a ten month truce (from August 24, 1459 to June 24,
1460) provisionally ended hostilities between the emperor and Matthias, who
then took the opportunity to set free his uncle Michael Szilágyi.103
On September 26, 1459, Pope Pius II opened the Council of Mantua, deliver-
ing a three hour speech in which he took stock of the successes of the Turks, de-
scribing them as “people thirsting for our blood, who, after subjecting Greece,

102  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, pp. 342–343, ll. 917–948.
For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald, ll.
917–948, pp. 225–226. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed. and
trans. Cazacu, ll. 917–948, pp. 146/148 [German], 147/149 [French].
103  A letter from Buda dated September 13, 1459, says that Michael Szilágyi, reunited with his
possessions, “was given the offer to work for the defense of this realm against the Turks”
(MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 42, pp. 64–66). We know further that during frontier skirmishes
in 1460 Szilágyi was captured by the Turks and hanged at Constantinople, on the sultan’s
order. Cf. Iorga, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, vol. 2, 110–111. That his nephew did
nothing to liberate him is astonishing. See also the testimony of Kemālpașazāde, which
makes the affair even more troubling (Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 198).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 125

have already placed the sword on the flank of Hungary.” Following this lengthy
discourse, the princes in attendance—among whom was Frederick III—
promised an army of 80,000 men. And on January 14, 1460, the pope proclaimed
a three year crusade against the Turks.104 During this council, the German
princes demanded, among other things, the conclusion of peace between the
emperor and King Matthias as an indispensable condition for launching any
military action. However, the rich German cities turned a deaf ear and two
successive diets in 1460—at Nuremberg in March, and Wiener Neustadt in
September,—were mainly occasions for deploring the civil wars tearing apart
Germany as well as Hungary.105
Matthias Corvinus promised to participate in the crusade with an army of
40,000, but his preconditions were peace with the emperor, and his recogni-
tion as the elected king of Hungary. To this end, on February 20, 1460, the pope
offered him a sum of 40,000 ducats to finance the recovery of the crown, on the
condition that he would not conclude any separate peace with Mehmed II.106
However, to attain this objective, Matthias needed more than ever the
Transylvanian Saxons’ support. The latter, however, despite all the king’s gener-
ous gifts, sided in favor of Frederick III. The last obstacle to this understanding
was Vlad Dracula and his intransigent policy of commercial war. This prince
of Wallachia proved to be a decidedly troublesome vassal, independent and
intent on war with the Turks, whom Matthias intended to keep at a distance
until his conflict with Frederick III was resolved. Obviously, despite his solemn
promises to join the crusade, the young king knew perfectly well that a two
front war might well be disastrous for Hungary as well as himself.
It should be apparent, now, why the king authorized Dan to expel Dracula
from the Wallachian throne. This pretender—known in Romanian history as
Dan III—was supported by the Brașov burghers, who gave him hospitality and
the necessary funds to hire mercenaries. This money came at least partially
from the sale of merchandise confiscated from Wallachians held in Brașov.
By March 2, 1460, Dan III had already formed a princely council composed of
boyars from Făgăraș and Wallachian fugitives. On that day he issued a charter
in which he is entitled “Dan Voievod of Wallachia and Lord of the Lands of
Amlaș and Făgăraș.” In this document he reflects upon:

104  We follow here Setton, Papacy and the Levant, vol. 2, 212ff.
105  See the documents published by Iorga, ed., Notes et extraits, vol. 4, 169–187; Setton, Papacy
and the Levant, vol. 2, 216–218.
106  Theiner, ed., Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram, 351.
126 CHAPTER 4

… the enormous injustices; the irreparable losses; the miserable slaugh-

ter, mutilations, [and] torments with which the proved and honest men
inhabiting the city of Brașov and land of Bârsa, and all their communi-
ties, have been afflicted—[afflictions affecting] brothers, friends, rela-
tives, sons, and their bodily parts—[caused] by the impious, most cruel
and faithless tyrant, namely Dracul, the so-called Vlad voievod of the
aforementioned places. [These afflictions transpired] on account of us,
and our supporters, [who] were innocently killed, slaughtered, muti­
lated, and [who] suffered various and sundry torments, [while they] were
endeavoring [to provide] loyal services to our aforementioned Lord King,
and defense of the lands of His Serenity …107

After the snow had melted, during Easter week 1460—which fell on April 13—,
Dan III crossed the frontier and marched against the Vlad Dracula’s forces.
His undertaking was hardly crowned with success. As early as April 22, a cer-
tain Blaise from Pest apprised the burghers of Bartfa (Bardejov, in Slovakia)
that Dracula had defeated, captured and decapitated the pretender, following
which he inflicted various abuses on Dan’s followers:

It is also true that the voievod called Dracula [Draculya] has these days
done battle with voievod Dan. And only seven of voievod Dan’s men
have escaped a most miserable death. Dan himself, taken prisoner, was
beheaded on Dracula’s orders. Likewise, moved by his ferocity [propter
enormitatem], Dracula ordered the impalement of the voievod’s men
who had fallen in battle. And also the women he was able to catch have
also been impaled, with their infants attached to their breasts. And all
this on account of his cruelty, and to the greatest loss of the Christians.108

The German pamphlet of 1463 adds a macabre detail to this account:

He captured young Darin [Dan] and thereafter had his priests read [a
funeral service]. When this was finished, he had a grave dug [for him]
according to Christian custom, and had him beheaded next to the grave.109

107  Bogdan, Ioan, ed., Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLXIX, pp. 325–327,
with quote on p. 326.
108  Katona, ed., Historia critica regum Hungariae, vol. 14, 337–338; Nicolae Iorga, “Lucruri
nouă despre Vlad Ţepeș [New documents on Vlad the Impaler],” Convorbiri literare 35
(1901): 159.
109  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 311, Episode 9. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 9, pp. 94
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 127

The atrocity of this scene is even more remarkable if we recall that it probably
took place during Lent, a time of universal sadness. What thoughts must have
overwhelmed the unfortunate Dan, still alive, as he heard the priests intoning
the prayers for the dead:

Come, brethren, let us give the last kiss unto the dead, rendering thanks
unto God. For he hath vanished from among his kin, and presseth on-
ward to the grave, and vexeth himself no longer concerning vanities, and
concerning the flesh, which suffereth sore distress. Where are now his
kinsfolk and his friends? Lo, we are parted. Let us beseech the Lord that
he will give him rest. […]
Draw nigh, ye descendants of Adam, let us gaze upon him who is laid
low in the earth, made after our own image, all comeliness stripped off,
dissolved in the grave; by decay, by worms in darkness consumed, and
hidden by the earth. As we leave him hid from sight, let us beseech Christ
that he will give unto him eternal rest. […]
Now are all the bodily organs seen to be idle, which so little while ago
were filled with motion; all useless, dead, inactive. For the eyes have with-
drawn inward, the feet are bound, the hands lie helpless, and the ears
withal; the tongue is imprisoned in silence, committed to the tomb. Of a
verity, all mortal things are vanity.110

Let us hope that Dan did not fully comprehend the Slavonic of this funeral
service, and was thus spared additional torment.
Dracula’s vengeance didn’t stop there. Reprisals against Brașov, which
had sheltered the pretender Dan, were on the horizon. On April 28, the
Transylvanian dignitary János Geréb de Vingárt warned the Brașov burghers
“that the illustrious prince Voievod Vlad, the lord of Wallachia, is ready and
intends to come and devastate these parts, along with the Turks, the most cruel
enemies of Christ.”111 Terrified by this prospect, the burghers of Brașov, Sibiu,
and Siebenbürgen, along with king Matthias, sent an embassy of fifty-five
people who arrived at Târgoviște to negotiate peace with Dracula. The latter,
however, was barely interested. In an attempt to obfuscate, he detained the em-
bassy for about five weeks, hoping that the Saxons would consider themselves

[German]/95 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their In Search
of Dracula (1994), Episode 9, p. 194.
110  
Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church, compiled
etc. and trans. Isabel Florence Hapgood (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, 1906), 390.
111  
Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. XCIII, p. 54.
128 CHAPTER 4

safe from attack in the course of the negotiations. Then the voievod’s lightning
campaign struck at the Bârsa country and environs of Brașov. Brașov’s suburbs
and the church of Saint Bartholomew were burned, and Codlea (Zeidling) and
Bod (Beckendorf) likewise were attacked. Impalements were reported near the
chapel of Saint James, on a hill facing Brașov. This punitive campaign is rather
well described in the German pamphlet of 1463, which contains information
derived from one or several eye witnesses, amongst whom evidently were
some of the ambassadors, as well as others present at the scene.

Item: Fifty-five ambassadors were sent to Dracula in Wallachia by the

king of Hungary and the Saxons in Siebenbürgen [Transylvania]. Dracula
let these lords wait about five weeks, and had stakes made before their
lodgings. They thought they would be impaled. And oh, how deeply con-
cerned they were! He held them so long so that they would not betray
him. And he left with his whole army and went forth to Burzenland [Ţara
Bârsei]. Early one morning he came to the villages, castles, and towns,
and everything he overpowered he also destroyed, all the crops and
grain, and he had everything burned. And all those he captured he
had led outside the city of Kronstadt [Brașov], near the chapel of Saint
James. And Dracula himself rested there, and had the entire suburbs
burned. And as the day came, in early morning, all those whom he
captured—women and men, children, young and old—he had impaled
on the hill near the chapel, and around the hill. And he sat down at table
amidst them, and had joy of it.
Item: He had the church of St. Bartholomew burned, and he stole and
made off with all the liturgical vestments and chalices.
Item: He sent one of his captains to burn a large village named Seiding
[Codlea], but this captain was not able to burn it on account of resistance
from the villagers. Then he came to his lord and said: “Lord, I wasn’t able
to carry out what you ordered me [to do].” Then he [Dracula] seized him
and had him impaled.112

112  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 311, Episodes 10–12. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episodes 10–12, pp.
94/96 [German], 95/97 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their
In Search of Dracula, Episodes 10–11 [sic], p. 194. A contemporary notice in the chronicle
of the monastery of Melch, in Austria, specifies that two hundred people were impaled
near the chapel of St. James, and that the table on which Dracula took his breakfast was
wrested from the chapel’s main altar. See Pez, ed., Scriptores rerum Austriacarum veteres
ac genuini, col. 258; Pertz, ed., Chronica et annales aevi Salici, 519–520.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 129

Only after he had carried out his vengeance did Dracula conclude a truce with
the ambassadors, for an unspecified period. This truce accorded him, among
other things, the right to recover the freedom of the political refugees held in
Brașov.113
In July, Vlad prepared a new campaign targeted, as he himself proclaimed,
against Făgăraș.114 This was in fact a ruse, since the prince was targeting Amlaș,
which he entered on August 24, 1460, St. Bartholomew’s Day. For this attack,
our only source is the German pamphlet of 1463:

Item: In the year 1460, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, in the morning, Dracula
came with his servants over the forest, and, as is reported, he hunted
down all the Wallachians of both sexes near the village of Amlaș. And
he was able to bring together so many that he left them [piled up] in a
bunch, and they were chopped up like cabbage with swords, sabers, and
knives. And he brought home their chaplain and those he was not able to
kill at that time, and had them impaled. He had the village with its goods
completely burned, and, as is said, [those killed] numbered more than
thirty thousand.115

An indirect reference to this punitive expedition appears in an act of Matthias

Corvinus dated December 3, 1462. By this deed, the king ceded to a certain
dignitary from Brașov two villages which Vlad had destroyed and depopulated,
and which he was mandated to colonize with new inhabitants. One of these
villages, Mica, is no longer attested after this date.
These reprisals were doubtless targeted at inhabitants accused of having
aided and sheltered the pretender Dan III, who included Amlaș and Făgăraș
in his princely title. We must underscore that Dracula only attacked the
Wallachians, whom he considered rebellious subjects, without causing dam-
age to the Saxons, with whom he had concluded a truce which the two parties
respected. These latest developments, and Matthias Corvinus’ insistence that

113  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3218, p. 79; no. 3224, p. 83.
114  See his July 26 letter to the Brașov burghers inviting them not to have fear (“non terrorem
habeatis”), and assuring them his campaign was directed solely again Făgăraș (“quoniam
nos omnia ex parte pacis conclusione et unione eiusdem promissa infringibiliter erga
vos et vestros quoslibet, nisi per vos eodem conclusio pacis violari non videatur, volumus
observare”). Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCLXIII, p. 321.
115  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 313, Episode 24. For the original German
with accompanying French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 24,
p. 100 [German], 99 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their
In Search of Dracula (1994), Episode 22 [sic], p. 196.
130 CHAPTER 4

a solution be found, at length transformed the truce into a peace treaty. The
full content of this treaty is unknown, but we do know, from an allusion by
Dracula that the peace was concluded on September 6. Vlad’s proposals, which
must have been accepted, appear in a memorandum of his envoys, the only
document which thus far has surfaced on this episode. According to this text,
the Saxons of Brașov and Sibiu had to return the Wallachian refugees to the
prince, and provide him with 4,000 fighting men in case of war with the Turks
or Moldavia. The two parties also had to assist one another if under attack.
Dracula further agreed to impede any Ottoman attack on Transylvania, and
exacted damages for the goods seized from his subjects by the Brașov burghers
during the hostilities. On their side, the Saxons required the return of captives
Vlad had taken during his campaigns in Transylvania, and, most probably, a
reopening of commercial routes subject to conditions the Wallachian prince
might impose.116
With this accord, to which all the Saxons agreed—the Stühle, Sibiu,
Brașov, and also the Szeklers—, peace was restored between Wallachia and
Transylvania. Even without further documentation, we can be certain that
there were no further armed conflicts between the two regions down through
Vlad’s fall from power, at the end of 1462.

A Moldavian Danger?

With the question of Transylvania settled, Dracula admitted to fearing yet

another aggression, this one coming from Moldavia and on the same order as
an Ottoman invasion. How had it come to that?
Let us recall that after Vlad was expelled from Wallachia in November
1448, he took refuge in Moldavia, the other Romanian country. At that time,
Moldavia was much larger than Wallachia (93,000 square kilometers), but
apparently less populated. Since 1432, the Bogdan dynasty was plagued with
ferocious internecine strife over possession of the throne. Vassals of Poland,
the princes had alternatively sought aid from the lords (Polish) of Galicia and
Podolia, the princes of Lithuania, and from 1448, János Hunyadi and Hungary.
The Polish-Hungarian rivalry for domination of Moldavia dates to the second

116  
Text was published by Gustav Gündisch, “Vlad Ţepeș und die sächsischen
Selbstverwaltungsgebiete Siebenbürgens,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 8, no. 6 (1969): 991–
992, and also in his Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3237, pp. 90–91. Edited here is Vlad’s letter
dated October 11, 1460 to the burghers of Brașov, on the reverse of which is his ambassa-
dor’s memorandum.
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 131

half of the fourteenth century. Even though the majority of the nobles favored
Polish suzerainty, since this never impacted religious matters, the Moldavian
princes Peter II,117 Alexăndrel, and Bogdan II preferred a protective alliance
with János Hunyadi. The price for this was surrendering to Hungary, in 1448,
the fortress of Kilia at the mouth of the Danube. There Hunyadi installed a
garrison charged with preventing the entry and exit of Turkish war ships. In
addition, Kilia now served as a military base for future expeditions against the
Ottoman Empire. The Wallachians deeply resented this surrender, since they
themselves held claim to the fortress, which Alexandru the Good had seized
from Dan II in 1428. Situated on a major trade route between Asia and Central
Europe, Kilia’s strategic position and economic importance were obvious to
everyone. Following János Hunyadi’s death, and Matthias Corvinus’ abandon-
ment of his anti-Ottoman military projects, it was possible for Vlad Dracula,
once established on the throne, to reassert Wallachian domination over Kilia.
We should likewise recall that the pretender Peter Aron’s brutal assassina-
tion of Bogdan II, in October 1451, forced Vlad to seek refuge in Transylvania,
whence János Hunyadi expelled him five months later. Vlad Dracul’s execution
was too recent, and Hunyadi could hardly risk being stabbed in the back by a
reckless youth, who was raised in the Ottoman saray. Furthermore, Vladislav
II’s position as voievod of Wallachia was guaranteed by the Turco-Hungarian
treaty of November 1451, and Vlad appeared rather difficult to control.
Bogdan II’s widow and children likewise sought refuge in Transylvania,
at the same time as Dracula. After the latter ascended the throne, Stephen
(Bodgan’s youngest son) followed suit and made his way to Wallachia. In April
1457, at the head of 6,000 men supplied by Dracula, Stephen invaded Moldavia,
defeated Peter Aron in battle, and was crowned prince on April 12. Peter fled
to the impenetrable fortress of Kamenec Podolskij, where he found safety
under the protection of its châtelain Muzylo Buczacz (Buczacki).
Stephen and Dracula chose an opportune moment to intervene in Moldavia
because Poland was then incapable of responding militarily. Since 1454, all her
forces were occupied in a war against the Teutonic Order. Stephen took the
opportunity to launch several attacks into Pokutia and Podolia, attempting
each time to capture his rival, pillaging villages and towns, and thus blocking
commerce between the two countries. These skirmishes, fully comparable to
Dracula’s attacks on the Saxons, were aimed at forcing the Poles to expel Peter

117  We follow here the traditional enumeration of Moldavian princes, and not that proposed
by Rezachevici, who designates this voievod Petru III (Cronologia critică a domnilor,
vol. 1, 499–502, 505–508).
132 CHAPTER 4

Aron, whose presence in Kamenec paralleled that of the Wallachian pretend-

ers in Brașov and Sibiu.
At last, on April 4, 1459, a peace treaty was concluded between Stephen and
Casimir IV’s plenipotentiaries. The Moldavian prince agreed to cease hostili-
ties, allow free trade, and recognize and serve no one but Casimir IV, to whom
he promised military aid. In addition he acknowledged the surrender of Hotin
to Poland. This northern Moldavian fortress—pivotal for the country’s de-
fense, and a trading post frequented by merchants—had been ceded to the
king of Poland by Peter Aron. In return, Peter Aron was explicitly prohibited
from approaching the Moldavian frontier below Smotricz.118
Paralleling this accord, Stephen had to pay tribute of 2,000 gold coins to
Mehmed II, exactly as his predecessors had done since 1453–1454, to preserve
peace on the southern border and guarantee free access of Moldavian mer-
chants to the Ottoman market. This situation did not in any way disturb the
king of Poland, who apparently had concluded a non-aggression pact with
Mehmed II a few years before.
Let us note, finally, that Stephen established good relations with the Brașov
burghers, but only following their truce with Michael Szilágyi and Vlad.119
Moldavia’s return to the Polish orbit ipso facto elicited tension with its
former allies, in particular Hungary, since Stephen had not signed a treaty
with Matthias Corvinus, as had his father with János Hunyadi. This clarifies
why Peter Aron, in 1460–61, could so easily find asylum in the Szekler coun-
try of eastern Transylvania, when his situation in Poland became difficult.
For Stephen, Peter’s settlement there was a casus belli, and the Moldavian
prince made several unsuccessful attempts to capture his father’s assassin, at-
tacking and devastating the region. Moldavia and Hungary were now in open
conflict, and this would last until the summer of 1462.
On the other hand, the conflict between Wallachia and Moldavia wasn’t
particularly heated, and was driven by different causes. Dracula could only
admire—and perhaps envy—the obstinacy with which Stephen pursued his
father’s assassin. After more than thirteen years of pursuit, he did succeed in
capturing and decapitating Peter, in December 1470. Here the conflict was over
possession of Kilia, which Stephen had demanded from Hungary since his suc-
cession to the throne. This must have irritated Vlad Dracula, who, in October
1460, said he feared an attack from Moldavia on his country, or more precisely

118  Bogdan, ed., Documentele lui Ștefan cel Mare, no. CXXVI, pp. 266–269.
119  Ibid., no. CXXIV, pp. 259–260 (a letter dated October-November 1457), and no. CXXV,
pp. 261- 265 (a commercial privilege of March 13, 1458).
The Reign ( 1456–1462 ) 133

the Danubian fortress. In point of fact, no such attack took place in 1460, but
rather occurred at the worst possible moment for Vlad, in June 1462.120
The disagreement between Vlad and Stephen regarding Kilia, further fueled
by various intrigues,121 sharpened after March 2, 1462, when the Moldavian
prince once again swore fealty to the king of Poland. By this act, which the
metropolitan and boyars of the country confirmed, Stephen was obliged,
among other things, to recover every “region, district, city or fief” which had
been alienated in the past. We have here a very clear allusion to Kilia, an allu-
sion which figured, moreover, in all the loyalty oaths sworn by the Moldavian
princes to their Polish suzerain since 1448.122
A month later, on April 2, an embassy arrived from Caffa, the Genoese
colony in the Crimea, at the court of king Casimir, clearly affirming that the
prince of Moldavia was in a state of war with his Wallachian neighbor. This was
deemed advantageous for the Turks, and dangerous for Christians in the two
neighboring countries.123
Parallel to these developments in Moldavia, the situation in Hungary had
become rather complicated. Dracula’s September-October 1460 truce with the

120  Nicolae Iorga, Studiĭ istorice asupra Chilieĭ și Cetăţiĭ-Albe [Historical studies on Kilia and
Cetatea Albă] (Bucharest: Institutul de arte grafice C. Göbl, 1900). Petre P. Panaitescu,
“Legăturile moldo-polone în secolul XV și problema Chiliei [Moldovan-Polish relations
in the fifteenth century and the problem of Kilia],” Romanoslavica 3 (1958): 95–115;
Șerban Papacostea, “Un épisode de la rivalité polono-hongroise au XV e siècle: La cam-
pagne de Mathias Corvin en Moldavie (1467), à la lumière d’une source inédite,” Revue
roumaine d’histoire 8 (1969): 967–979, and also his “Die politischen Voraussetzugen für
die wirtschaftliche Vorherrschaft des Osmanischen Reiches in Schwarzmeergebiet (1453–
1484),” Münchener Zeitschrift für Balkankunde 1 (1978): 217–245.
121  Thus, on June 12, 1460, Stephen granted safe conduct to Mihail (Mihu), the Moldavian
chancellor who had taken refuge in Poland with Peter Aron, inviting him to return to
the country and assuring him of pardon. Among the chancellor’s hostile actions were
“matters which should be forgotten and which took place in Wallachia or elsewhere.” It’s
unclear what these “matters” were about, but it is certain that the chancellor was conspir-
ing against Stephen and tried to lure Vlad into this plot. See Bogdan, ed., Documentele lui
Ștefan cel Mare, vol. 2, no. CXXVII 269–271. At length, on April 12, 1461, Peter Aron’s former
protector—Muzylo of Buczacz (Buczacki), castelan of Kamenec Podolski—signed two
acknowledgments of debt vis-à-vis this same chancellor on the eve of his departure on an
embassy to Wallachia, a mission not at all strange given the tension existing between Vlad
and Stephen. See Documente, vol. 2, pt. 2, nos. CXV and CXVI, pp. 135–136.
122  Bogdan, ed., Documentele lui Ștefan cel Mare, vol. 2, no. CXXIX, pp. 282–288. Panaitescu,
“Legăturile moldo-polone în secolul XV și problema Chiliei,” 104–107.
123  Vigna, ed., Codice diplomatico delle colonie Tauro-Liguri, 468–470; Panaitescu, “Legăturile
moldo-polone în secolul XV și problema Chiliei,” 108.
134 CHAPTER 4

Saxons overlapped with the prolongation of the Frederick III and Matthias
Corvinus’ armistice, which extended to February 1461. Throughout this peri-
od, the Hungarian king was hardly idle. In January, he concluded an alliance
against Frederic III with George Podiebrad, king of Bohemia, which treaty was
announced on Matthias’ betrothal ceremony with his new ally’s daughter. In
April, he concluded a treaty with Albert VI of Hapsburg, archduke of Austria
and brother of the emperor. That same month, hostilities between the two
camps became more intense, and the Hungarian and Austrian troops succeed-
ed in routing the imperial army. Frederick III was obliged to request the good
offices of the king of Bohemia, and an armistice was concluded in Luxemburg
for the duration of nine months, down to June 24, 1462.124
At the Hungarian Diet, which opened in Buda in November 1461, King
Matthias obtained the representatives’ approval to enter into new negotia-
tions with the emperor. At the beginning of 1462, bishop John Vitéz, one of
Corvinus’ close advisors, visited Graz to meet with the papal legate and work
out a treaty to be approved by Frederick III. The six key points in the accord
essentially provided that the title “king of Hungary” would be granted to the
emperor; that Frederick would adopt Matthias as his son, and Matthias would
take the emperor as his father; that they would now be mutually allied against
all enemies, except for the papacy; that Frederick would render to Matthias the
crown of Hungary as proof of his paternal intentions; and that should Matthias
die without heirs, the crown would revert to the emperor and his descendants.
The final two points in the agreement deal with a general amnesty the two
sides would accord to their partisans, and the fate of several frontier cities
occupied by imperial troops.
The foregoing refers to the official text of the agreement, intended to be
made public. But there were three other clauses which must have been kept se-
cret. Matthias was obliged to pay the emperor 80,000 gold ducats for the crown
and various damages; he likewise had to renounce his alliance with archduke
Albert of Austria; and he agreed not to remarry, which of course had seriously
implications for the possible founding of a dynasty.125
Despite their extreme severity, which the military situation on the ground
did not justify, Matthias accepted these terms, resolved more than ever to re-
cover the Holy Crown. To raise the sums the emperor required, the king con-
vened the Hungarian Diet at Buda for May 10, 1462.

124  Nehring, Mathias Corvinus, Friedrich III. und das Reich, 16–18.
125  Ibid., 18–19. See also Șerban Papacostea’s review of Nehring’s book in Revue romaine
d’histoire 15, no. 3 (1976): 545–549, emphasizing the importance of the emperor’s adop-
tion of Matthias, and precedents in János Hunyadi’s treaties with the Moldavian princes
between 1448 and 1450.
 CHAPTER 5

The Conqueror of Constantinople

While Matthias Corvinus was variously fighting or pursuing negotiations

with the emperor, Mehmed II’s1 deeds confirmed Pope Pius II’s worst fears.
After occupying Serbia (1458–1459) and the Morea (1460), the sultan devoted
1461 to Asian affairs, bringing to an end the Empire of the Grand Comneni of
Trebizond, and the Turkish emirate of Sinope. In so doing he left the Danube
front facing Hungary nearly denuded of troops. The Hungarians did not take
advantage of this situation, except for a few skirmishes led by Michael Szilágyi,
who died at the end of a rope in Istanbul, which had little effect on his royal
nephew. Matthias’ failure to act is hardly surprising, and one can only wonder
if the persistent rumors circulating in 1458–1461 about a secret treaty between
the Turks and the Hungarians might be plausible.2
Dracula, for his part, adhered to the positions he’d adopted since 1458—
refusal to pay tribute to Mehmed II, and, to be sure, blocking the Turks from
crossing the Carpathians to launch expeditions into Transylvania. The pope’s
appeal for crusade had been heard in Wallachia, and the voievod was waiting
for a signal from Matthias to join him and the other Christian princes. In 1461,
relations between the two men had become normalized, and, since Vlad was
unmarried, Matthias proposed that he marry a young lady from his family.3

1  See fig. 20 for the celebrated portrait of Mehmed II attributed to Nakkaș Sinan Bey, in the
Topkapı Sarayı Library, Istanbul.
2  These rumors were coming from Poland, where Casimir IV was openly accusing Matthias in
1458 of “cum illo inhumanissimo Teucro te concordare” (MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 29, 41–42).
On April 25, 1460, it was Pius II’s turn to remind Matthias that he was sending him money to
fight the Turks, and not to conclude a truce, as was rumored (Theiner, ed., Vetera monumenta
historica Hungariam sacram, 356–357). See also Pius II, Commentarii, ed. Totaro, 2518–2521.
The same theme appears in voievod Stephen of Bosnia’s letter, dated December 1, 1461, to the
Venetian Senate: the Grand Turk has occupied all of Serbia, Trebizond and Sinope, “etiam ha
facto paxe con el Re da Ungaria secondo sentiamo” (MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 67, pp. 101–103).
3  On February 11, 1462, Vlad wrote to Matthias invoking “pacem et unionem inter vestram
serenitatem et nos initam et confederatum […] nupciasque celebret.” The Venetian envoy
Pietro di Tommasi also knew that Dracula “ha tolto una sua [Matthias] parente per moglie”
(Letter dated March 4, 1462, to Doge Pasquale Malipiero, in a copy to Milan, published by
Ioan Bianu, “Ștefan cel Mare: Câteva documente din Archivul de stat de la Milan [Stephen
the Great: some documents from the archives of the state of Milan],” Columna lui Traian 4
(1883): 34–35. Matthias Corvinus’ official historian, Antonio Bonfini, also knew that the king

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136 CHAPTER 5

Five Hundred Young Men

The news of this proposed marriage alliance quickly reached the sultan’s ears.
He maintained, after all, an important network of informants in all the lands
neighboring his empire. Mehmed II understood very well the possible impor-
tance of such a marriage, since it would constitute a unilateral political alliance
which could only be directed against the Turks. In contrast to straightforward
political pacts or treaties, marriage alliances were more solid and stable, pro-
ducing children who could inherit one or the other country. More importantly,
such offspring were often the prelude to the unification of two states, or the
weaker one’s annexation by the stronger.4
Even if, in this case, the prospects weren’t quite so dire, Mehmed II acted
resolutely to ensure that this project would not come to fruition. He surely was
familiar with Vlad’s character, having been able to study him closely in court
audiences at Constantinople in 1457 and 1458. Consequently, the sultan opted
first to resort to trickery. In late 1461 or early 1462, he sent an ambassador to
Vlad, namely the Greek secretary Thomas Katabolenos.
This dignitary cultivated ties with the Orthodox church, led now by Joasaph I
Kokkas, patriarch of Constantinople. As was the case with the Armenians
and the Jews of the Empire, the Greeks received from Mehmed II a theo-
cratic government led by the patriarch. The Romanian church of Wallachia
and Moldavia was a creation of the patriarchate of Constantinople, which the
Greeks called ecumenical, and still do.5 The metropolitans of the two coun-
tries were, more often than not, Greek churchmen appointed by the patriarch
and his synod in order to guide the “ignorant sheep”—Wallachians, Russians,
and Bulgarians. Metropolitan Joseph of Wallachia (Ungro-Wallachia in official
Byzantine terminology) was a member of the Holy Synod of Constantinople,

had given Dracula “mulierem suam quoque consanguinean legitimo matrimonio coniuga-
rat” (Bonfini, ed. Juhász, vol. 3, 243). The German pamphlet of 1463 alleges that the “old gov-
ernor of Hungary” (a confusion with János Hunyadi) wanted to give his daughter in marriage
to Dracula. (See Appendix, p. 316, Episode 36. For the original German with accompanying
French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 36, pp. 102 [German], 101/103
[French]). The other pamphlets in the series omit this. In any case the allegation is impos-
sible, because Matthias was just nineteen years old in February 1462. Dracula’s marriage was
envisioned for October 1462, in Sibiu.
4  As was the case of Brittany, brought in dowry to Louis XII, or the Burgundian states, which
fell into Maximilian I Habsburg’s hands via his marriage to Charles the Bold’s daughter, Marie
of Burgundy.
5  I.e., global, directing the entire oikoumene, meaning the world as known and inhabited by the
ancients.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 137

and locum tenens of a bishopric in Asia Minor, located in partibus infidelium

(lands occupied by the infidels). It was he who presided at the election of the
Wallachian prince.
Clearly, then, Thomas Katabolenos was not simply an agent of the sultan,
an ignorant barbarian, but an able and persuasive diplomat, recommended
by the ecumenical patriarch. His mission was commensurate with his great
talent since his mandate was to convince Vlad to bring, in person, the trib-
ute which had gone unpaid for three years. Chalkokondyles, who could have
known Katabolenos, describes the facts as follows:

… during the winter it was reported to the sultan that Vlad was plan-
ning a rebellion to change the status quo, and that he had turned to the
Hungarians, had come to an agreement with them, and made an alliance.
The sultan took this matter most seriously and sent one of the leading
men of his Porte, a Greek secretary, to summon Vlad to the Porte and say
that, when he came into his presence at the Porte, he would suffer no
harm at the hands of the sultan but rather would regain favor and bless-
ing, and would not be overlooked by the sultan if he truly supported the
sultan’s interests.6

Doukas, the other Greek historian of the time, clarifies that the sultan’s demands
were exorbitant. In addition to three years tribute, plus interest, amounting to
10,000 gold ducats, Vlad had to bring five hundred young men for the janis-
sary corps.7 This latter demand was very much a novelty, since the “collection”
(devșirme in Turkish) of boys was only carried out within the Christian popu-
lations of the Ottoman Empire—the dhimmi (protected non-Muslims)—, or
from among war prisoners, as was the case with Konstantin Mihailović, who
was captured in 1439 by a troop of Turkish warriors. The boys were then cir-
cumcised and converted to Islam, educated in special schools, and finally
assigned to various administrative units and great state institutions—the

6  Translation here from Appendix, p. 348. For the original Greek with facing English trans-
lation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.84, pp. 370 [Greek]/371 [English]. For possible
ecclesiastical dimensions of Katabolenos’ mission, see Dan Ioan Mureșan, “De l’intronisation
du métropolite Théoctiste Ier au sacre d’Étienne le Grand,” in Ștefan cel mare și Sfânt: Atlet al
credinţei creștine [Stephen the Great and Saint: athlete of the Christian faith] (Putna: Sfânta
Mănăstire Putna and Suceava: Editura Mușatinii, 2004), 361. Also see note 78 for the com-
memoration service for Katabolenos which the Patriarch of Constantinople held in 1462.
7  Doukas, ed. Grecu, XLV 20, p. 431. Translations in Romanian by Grecu, 430; and in English by
Magoulias, 259–260.
138 CHAPTER 5

imperial palace, the sultan’s guard, central and provincial administration.

The janissaries formed an elite corps par excellance, assuring the sultan’s
tight personal security on the battlefield. Those not targeted for the janissary
corps could attain the highest military or civil offices. Indeed, the majority of
Ottoman grand viziers from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, among
whom the most celebrated was Mahmud Pasha (1456–1466, 1472–1474), were
Christians converted to Islam and recruited by the devșirme, or selected from
prisoners of war.
This “delivery” of young boys was equivalent to an integration of the country
into the political and administrative structures of the Ottoman Empire, and
thus a military occupation. Wallachia, however, though tributary, had thus far
preserved its internal autonomy. Its boyars elected the princes, and the popu-
lation practiced their religion without interference. The Turks didn’t have the
right to settle permanently, possess houses, buy land, or construct mosques
in this region. The only foreigners tolerated were Germans and Catholic
Hungarians, but they lived in closed communities and were prohibited from
religious proselytizing. On the other hand, the orthodox Greeks, southern
Slavs, or Albanians were welcome. Only the Gypsies had the status of slaves,
and adopted the majority religion. Finally, converts to Islam were rare. Viewed
very negatively by the Orthodox church, whose authority in the land was para-
mount, their lives were a veritable misfortune. After submitting to a proce-
dure of civil death, the newly converted was forced to sell all his possessions
and leave the country. His name was stricken from the family’s registry of the
deceased (wherein the names of the dead, and the day of their burial were
recorded). The portraits of wealthier converts were removed from the church
or family monastery.
For all these reasons, Vlad couldn’t accept the sultan’s conceit. In the Turkish
chronicles, notably Āșıkpașazāde and Neşrī, there is no mention of the sultan
demanding delivery of five hundred youth. They allege, however, that Vlad
would agree to come to the porte on condition that the sultan send one of his
frontier beys to protect his country during his absence. Because, he maintained,
“the inhabitants of my country are not faithful to me, and if I visit the sultan’s
court, they will appeal to the Hungarians to give the land to them.” Thus, ac-
cording to the chronicles, the sultan sent Hamza the “c̦akırcıbașı” (steward of
the falconers), governor of Nicopolis, to keep watch over the Danube.8

8  For Āșıkpașazāde’s original Ottoman, see Giese’s ed., chapter 36, p. 155. For facing Ottoman
and German translation, see Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, pp. 108/110 [Ottoman], 109/11
[German]. Additional translations in German by Kreutel, 227–228; in Romanian by Guboglu
and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 92–94; and in English by Treptow, Vlad III Dracula,
The Conqueror of Constantinople 139

This version of events, however, is contradicted by other sources.

Chalkokondyles, first of all, clarifies that the sultan was laying a trap to capture
Vlad by surprise:

But he sent secret instructions to Hamza, who was known as the Falconer
and had been appointed to govern a large extent of territory along the
Danube and also the prefecture of Vidin: if possible, he was to capture
the man by guile. The sultan would be personally gratified if, by guile
or whatever other means, he would be able to capture him. So he gave
orders through the same secretary for the man’s arrest. They took counsel
regarding this matter and decided it would be most effective if they set
an ambush in advance for Vlad there, in that land, when he joined up to
escort the secretary, and thus make the arrest. And the secretary would
indicate to Hamza when he was about to depart. That, then, is what the
secretary did: he signaled the moment when he was to depart and Vlad
would have to join in escorting him, and Hamza set the ambushes in that
very place. But Vlad and his men were armed and, when he joined in es-
corting the lord of the Porte of that region and the secretary, he fell into
the ambush. As soon as Vlad realized what was happening, he ordered his
men to arrest them and their servants. And when Hamza came against
him, Vlad fought bravely, routed and captured him, and killed a few of
those who fled. After capturing them, he led them all away to be impaled,
but first he cut off the men’s limbs. He had Hamza impaled on a higher
stake, and he treated their retinues in the same way as their own lords.9

In comparison, let’s consider what Dracula himself reports to King Matthias, in

a letter sent from Bucharest on February 11, 1462:

In other letters I’ve written to Your Serenity how the Turks, most cruel en-
emies of the Cross of Christ, have sent us their high-ranking ambassadors
to [persuade us] to break the peace and union [i.e., treaty] which were

196–198 (though derived from Guboglu and Mehmet). For Neşrī’s original Ottoman, see
Unat and Köymen’s ed., 754/758 [Ottoman script], 755/759 [Roman transcription]. For facing
Ottoman and German translation, see Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, pp. 268 [Ottoman], 269–
270 [German]. Additional translations in Romanian by Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici
turcești, 125–127; and in English by Treptow, Vlad III Dracula, 198–200 (though derived from
Guboglu and Mehmet).
9  Translation here from Appendix, pp. 348–349. For the original Greek with facing English
translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.85–86, pp. 370/372 [Greek], 371/373 [English].
140 CHAPTER 5

concluded and made, between Your Serenity and us, and not to celebrate
the [contracted] marriage. In place of which, they invite us to ally solely
with them and to go to the Porte of the Emperor of the Turks, that is to
say, his court. And if we do not abandon the peace, union [i.e., treaty] and
marriage with Your Serenity, the Turks will no longer keep peace with us.
They’ve likewise sent an important advisor to the Turkish Emperor,
Hamza Bey of Nicopolis, to demarcate the frontier at the Danube. And
if this Hamza Bey can bring us to the Porte, in one way or another—de-
ceptions, or promises, or other tricks—all the better. And if not, then he
should capture us and bring us [to the Porte] captive.
But, [thanks to the] merciful divine will, when we went to the afore-
mentioned frontier, we became apprised of their deceit and tricks, and
we captured Hamza Bey in [country] held by them, below a fortress
called Giurgiu.10

In his letter, Vlad makes no reference to tribute, or delivering youth, or travel-

ing to Constantinople, but only an Ottoman plot to ambush and capture him at
the Danube frontier. It is true that the prince mentions other letters he sent to
the Hungarian king, which have never surfaced and which may have addressed
other issues. In any case, we may legitimately wonder if Vlad truly intended to
proceed to the Porte, in light of his father’s mishap in 1442. Let’s recall that Vlad
Dracul had been lured to Adrianople by the subașı of Giurgiu, who swore that
the voievod had nothing to fear—that he would be safe, sound and free—if he
journeyed forth to the court of Murad II. But his captivity at Gallipoli following

10  The original of this letter is not known. There is a copy in Munich, in the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek (clm. 19648, f. 169vo–171). Discovered and transcribed by Nicolae Iorga,
it was published by Ioan Bogdan in his Vlad Ţepeș și naraţiunile germane și ruseștĭ asupra
lui: Studiu critic, cu cincĭ portrete [Vlad the Impaler and the German and Russian narra-
tives about him: Critical study, with five portraits] (Bucharest: Editura Librăriei Socecŭ
& Comp., 1896), 76–82. Another copy is in Wolfenbüttel at the Herzog Augustbibliothek.
This has been published by Andrei Corbea, “Cu privire la corespondenţa lui Vlad Ţepeș cu
Matei Corvin [On Vlad the Impaler’s Correspondence with Mathias Corvinus],” Anuarul
Institutului de Istorie și Arheologie “A. D. Xenopol” 17 (1980): 669–685. The passage quoted
above appears on pp. 78–79 of Bogdan’s edition, and p. 677 of Corbea’s. For an addition-
al English translation based on Bogdan, see Treptow, Vlad III Dracula, 183–184. On this
episode, the 1463 German pamphlet jumbles the facts and contains no credible infor-
mation (See Appendix, p. 314, Episode 25. For the original German with accompanying
French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 25, pp. 100 [German],
99 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, In Search of Dracula [1994],
Episode 23 [sic], pp. 196–197).
The Conqueror of Constantinople 141

his journey to the porte surely rendered his son less trustful of the promises
of the Turks.

Dracula’s Danubian Campaign

Whatever the case, this diplomatic enterprise ended quite dramatically.

Hamza bey of Nicopolis and Thomas Katabolenos were impaled. Some forty
of their men were mutilated, and in turn impaled beneath the palace win-
dows at Târgoviște. A few months later, Mehmed II and his army had the oc-
casion to contemplate their remains, which were still available for curious
onlookers to behold.
Dracula’s vengeance, however, didn’t stop there. Crossing the frozen Danube
in the depths of winter, the voievod divided his army into several squads and
launched a devastating raid, covering some 800 kilometers, from Kilia up to
Rahova, near the mouth of the Jiu River. Not a single city or village was spared,
regardless of whether they were Turkish or Bulgarian. Vlad’s forces destroyed
all the harbors and vessels of the Danube crossing points, killing or transport-
ing to the left bank thousands of Christians. The raid’s specific objectives were
to impress the Ottomans; destroy the lairs of the akıncılar and the martolos
(fortress guards, Danube marines); and dislocate a population which was sup-
plying the imperial army on campaign with provisions, guides, spies, wagons,
and auxiliaries of all sorts.
In his account of what transpired to the king of Hungary, Vlad calculated
the results of this bloody expedition as 22,883 dead, “without counting those
burned alive in their houses, or whose heads were not presented to our of-
ficers.” The Ottomans had never experienced such losses in such a short space
of time.
Vlad appended the following sinister post-scriptum to his victory letter:

Register of places where people of both sexes, Turks and Bulgars, have
been killed in Turkey by Lord Vlad, Voievod of Wallachia.
First, in the places called Obluciţa and Novoselo, 1,250 etc. were killed.
And in Dârstor and Cartal and Dridopotrom (?)11 6,840 were killed
[5,840 in the Wolfenbüttel copy]. And at Orșova 343; at Vectrem (?) 840
were killed; at Turtucaia 630 were killed, and likewise the fortifications

11  A confusion with the Greek “diopotami,” meaning “area between two rivers,” which here
designates the lakes region between the two branches of the Danube near Ialomiţa
and Brăila.
142 CHAPTER 5

surrounding it were taken, and only one tower remains. At Marotin 210
were killed; at Giurgiu, on both sides [of the river], 6,414 were killed and
the fortress on the other side of the Danube was conquered and occu-
pied. The lord of the stronghold, the subașı, was killed and it was there
that Hamza Bey was captured. The subașı of Nicopolis, the son of Firuz
Bey, was captured and his head was cut off, and the most powerful of the
Turks who inhabited Nicopolis perished with him. Likewise at Turnu and
Batin and Novigrad 384 were killed, and at Siștov and in the two towns
depending on it 410 were killed [4,100 in the Wolfenbüttel copy]. Likewise
the ford at Nicopolis was completely burned and destroyed. The same
for Samovit. And at Ghigen 1,318 were killed. In the town of Rahova 1,460
were killed, and the ford there was also completely burned. And the lord
Vlad named Neagoe captain at Rahova.
Likewise, in the aforementioned places where there were fords which
were completely burned, the inhabitants—men and women, youth, little
children together with babies—were killed and the area was destroyed.
And the figures given above represent the number of dead whose heads
and signs [signa; Konstantin Mihailović speaks of slit noses12] were
brought to our officers who were placed everywhere. The number of
those who were not registered or who were burned in their houses we do
not know, since many perished, etc.13

12  “Voievod Dracula the younger rode across the Danube on the ice with his whole army to
the Emperor’s land below Nikopolis. And there he released his men to plunder and kill
both Turks and Christians in the villages and open towns. And there he did great damage
to the Emperor, and he had the noses cut off all those living and dead, male and female.
And he sent these noses to Hungary, boasting that as many Turks had been defeated and
killed as there were of these noses” (trans. Stolz, p. 129, with original Slavic on p. 128).
13  Bogdan, Vlad Ţepeș si naratiunile, 81–82; Corbea, “Cu privire la corespondenţa,” 678–679.
For another English translation, see Treptow, Vlad III Dracula, 185–186. Several schol-
ars since Bogdan and Iorga have undertaken to identify the Bulgarian localities men-
tioned in this letter. See Petre Ș. Nasturel, “De quelques toponymes danubiens,” Studia
Balcanica 1 (1970): 126–128 (i.e., the section “Vlad l’Empaleur, libérateur de Hârsova et de
Ruse [1462]”); Radu Lungu, “À propos de la campagne antiottomane de Vlad l’Empaleur
au sud du Danube (hiver 1461–1462),” Revue roumaine d’histoire 22, no. 2 (1983): 153; Dan
Slușanschi, “Dunărea de Jos și campania lui Vlad Ţepeș din iarna 1461–1462 (precizări filo-
logice) [The lower Danube and Vlad the Impaler’s campaign of winter 1461–1462: philo-
logical clarifications],” Revista arhivelor 47 (1985): 434–437. It should be noted that the two
copies of this letter do not agree on the body counts. The Munich copy conveys a total of
23,884 killed, but adding the figures by localty yields a total of 20,099. The Wolfenbüttel
copy records 23,889 killed, but addition by localities yields 22,879.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 143

Vlad justified these massacres on grounds of piety, which rings all the more
false since the majority of his victims were civilians, and Christians just like
him.

[Thus] Your Serenity should know that which we, in our turn, have ac-
complished against those who were pressing us with their numerous
urgings to abandon the Christians and to ally with them. Therefore Your
Serenity should know that we have violated the peace with them not for
our benefit, but for the honor of Your Serenity and of Your Serenity’s Holy
Crown, and for the preservation of all Christianity and for the strengthen-
ing of the Catholic faith.14

A long exposition now follows in which Vlad announces his decision to re-
sist Mehmed II at all costs, and demands immediate assistance from Matthias
Corvinus:

[The Turks], seeing what we’ve done, have abandoned the other quarrels
and conflicts which they’ve pursued up till now—with the Holy Crown
and Your Serenity, and on all other fronts—and have thrown themselves
with all their furor upon me. As soon as the weather becomes favorable,
they intend to come with hostile intent and in full strength. But [now]
they don’t have fords over the Danube, since I ordered all of them to be
burned, except that at Vidin, and I’ve had them burned, destroyed, and
pillaged. Because they cannot damage me via the ford at Vidin, they will
want to bring their ships from Constantinople and Gallipoli by sea to the
Danube. Therefore, my gracious Lord, if Your Serenity’s desire is to fight
with them, then gather together the whole country and all men capable
of bearing arms, both horsemen and foot-soldiers, and lead them here
to Wallachia, and deem it worthy and be willing to engage in combat
[i.e., with the Turks]. And if Your Serenity cannot come in person, then
deign to send your army to your lands in Transylvania by the feast of Saint
George [April 23]. If Your Serenity cannot send your entire army, then
send what you want, at least [forces from] Transylvania and the Szeklers.
If Your Serenity wishes to come and help us, then let Your Serenity not
think of any delay, but indicate to us, truthfully, your will. Deign not to
detain our man who brings [you] this letter, but return him immediately
and quickly, for we do not wish, under any circumstances, to abandon
what we’ve begun. We intend, rather, to pursue it to the end. Because,

14  Bogdan, Vlad Ţepeș si naratiunile, 79–80; Corbea, “Cu privire la corespondenţa,” 677. For
another English translation, see Treptow, Vlad III Dracula, 184.
144 CHAPTER 5

if Almighty God hears the prayers and supplications of Christians, and

lends His ears with benevolence to the prayers of his humble [subjects],
and gives us victory over the pagans—enemies of the cross of Christ—,
this shall be for the honor and benefit and spiritual help of Your Serenity
and your Holy Crown, and for the entire orthodox Christian faith. For we
desire not to flee before their ferocity, but to fight with them in all pos-
sible ways. And if—but God forbid it—we should meet with disaster, and
our little kingdom [regniculum] should perish, Your Serenity shall have no
benefit or advantage, but it shall be to the detriment of all Christianity.15

A few days later, Vlad’s letter reached Buda and King Matthias hastened to
send copies to Venice and the pope. News from Constantinople arrived around
the same time at Venice, confirming that the Ottomans had suffered disaster
on the Danube. On March 23 news of Vlad’s raid was known in Bologna and
spread like wildfire through all of Northern Italy. The Venetian ambassador in
Buda, Pietro di Tommasi, realized immediately the significance of these events
and boasted of the Hungarian king’s determination to go and confront the
Turks. He added, however, a significant detail which will recur in all his future
correspondence with the doge:

But, Most Serene Prince, as I’ve already communicated in other letters

to Your Highness, it is necessary and urgent to attend to affairs here, by
sending either a legate, or funds to expend on needs of those who find
themselves in destitution. For, not seeing any concrete gesture from the
king, but only words, as he’s already conveyed in the past, it’s to be feared
that the situation will only devolve to some tragedy [trabuco, trabocco, lit-
erally “ambush, trap”] at the expense, and to the shame, of the Christians.16

In the meanwhile, the king was making arrangements and ordered the voievod
of Transylvania, and the people of that province, to assemble for the defense of
the country.17

15  Bogdan, op. cit. supra, 80–81; Corbea, op. cit. supra, 677–678. For another English transla-
tion, see Treptow, op. cit. supra, 184–185.
16  Bianu, “Ștefan cel Mare,” 34–35.
17  On March 18, Antonio Guidoboni reported to the Duke of Milan, based on information
sent from Constantinople by a gentleman, Contarini, that Vlad had killed the ambassador
who had come to collect the tribute “and perhaps 300 other Turks;” had taken six fron-
tier fortresses; and was acting in communication with the king of Hungary (“cum intel-
ligentia del Re d’Ungaria”), who was sending him aid (Makušev, ed., Monumenta historica
The Conqueror of Constantinople 145

But what was this “ambush” the king was fearing, and how could Dracula’s
victory over the Turks possibly give rise to that? The answers here are unclear,
but we may confidently accept that Matthias Corvinus, lacking in funds and
thus sufficient troops, feared that a failed operation against the Turks would
only lead to catastrophe. This is why he sent ambassadors to the pope and
Venice, asking for subsidies to hire 60,000 soldiers which he would need for
a period of six months.18 Venice agreed to pay 12,000 ducats a month, a sum
permitting the deployment of 4,000 cavalry. Later, however, this was reduced
to 5,000 ducats.19
In his letter of February 11, 1462, Vlad had asked the king to send him aid
before the Feast of Saint George. Even if he had so desired, Matthias couldn’t
agree to this request because he had just summoned the Diet to Buda, for
the following May 10, to obtain the necessary funds to recover the crown of
Hungary. After attaining support for this project from the cities, nobility, and
clergy (and additionally, as of August 10, 1462, the prince of Moldavia), in May
the king sent an ambassador to the pope asking, once again, for the prom-
ised subsidies. However, he had just made peace with Jan Jiskra of Brandys,
a ferocious Czech condottiere who had taken the law into his own hands in
northwestern Hungary, promising him 40,000 gold florins and granting him
numerous fortified castles.20

Alone Against the Turks

Vlad ignored all these maneuvers and hoped that the king would engage him-
self in the crusade agreed upon at Mantua in 1459. In this spring of 1462, he
closely watched the Turks’ movements, because Mehmed II was preparing a
major campaign which he wanted to lead in person. The army being levied was
the largest since that assembled for the conquest of Constantinople (60,000–
80,000), and the fleet (25 triremes, 150 transport ships) was gathering together

slavorum, vol. 2, no. IV.1, p. 157). On March 22, Caesar of Florence reported to Ludovico III
Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, that letters from Hungary were announcing that the Vlachs
had killed 50,000 Turks, of which 20,400 had their heads cut off (Ibid., no. II.2, p. 25).
18  M HH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 80, pp. 125–128. Also see the Senate’s letter to the Pope, dated
March 20, 1462 (Ibid., no. 78, 121–122).
19  Ibid., no. 82, pp. 130–131 (Letter from the Venetian Senate to the Pope, dated April 22);
Makušev, ed., Monumenta historica slavorum, vol. 2, no. IV.9, p. 158 (August 10).
20  M HH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 90, pp. 143–145; Fessler and Klein, Geschichte von Ungarn, vol. 3,
32–33.
146 CHAPTER 5

from March to April. Rumors were flying as regards the target of attack. Was
it Transylvania? Belgrade? News quickly reached Buda that the Grand Turk
had set out from Constantinople three days after the Feast of Saint George, to
“destroy Wallachia.” The Ottomans planned to cross the Danube at Vidin, the
fortress opposite the Hungarian frontier which the Turks still controlled after
Dracula’s winter assault.
The voievod was not idle. Our source here is again Pietro di Tommasi, writ-
ing from Buda, who claims that Dracula mobilized all able-bodied men aged
twelve and above, after ensuring the safety of women and children.21 According
to Chalkokondyles:

When the Wallachians learned that the sultan was attacking them, they
brought their women and children to places of safety, placing some of
them on Mount Brassó [i.e., the mountains of Brașov] and others in a
town called [missing in ms., perhaps Bucharest] which is surrounded on
all sides by a marsh which protected and guarded it and made it most
secure, and this provides safety. Other women they even placed in for-
ests, through which a stranger who was not local would have a hard time
crossing. For the forests are very thick; the trees grow densely and block
passage for the most part. Thus they removed their women and children
to places of safety, while they themselves assembled in one location to
follow Vlad their ruler.22

Leading an army estimated at 31,000, Dracula made preparations to confront

the sultan, and carefully monitor traffic on the Danube. The movement of the
Ottoman fleet into the Black Sea, however, compelled Dracula to divide his
forces and dispatch a force of 6,000 to defend Kilia, which was also threatened
by Stephen the Great of Moldavia.23

21  See Pietro di Tommasi’s report from Buda, dated May 27, in MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 88,
pp. 140–143.
22  Translation here from Appendix, p. 350. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.92, (pp. 378 [Greek]/379 [English]).
23  Nicholas of Modrussa affirms that Dracula disposed of 24,000 men to attack the Ottoman
camp on June 18 (ed. Mercati, 248–249). A figure of 30,900 soldiers is given in a variant
of the Russian story of Dracula (cf. Lur’e, Povest’ o Drakule, 173). Chalkokondyles gives a
figure of 6,000 soldiers for the defense of Kilia (Appendix, p. 354; ed. and trans. Kaldellis,
vol. 2, 9.105, pp. 392 [Greek]/393 [English]. For a discussion of troop strength, see Nicolae
Stoicescu, “La Victoire de Vlad l’Empaleur sur les Turcs (1462),” Revue roumaine d’histoire
15, no. 3 (1976): 377–397.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 147

Matthias Corvinus had promised to commence military action as soon as

the Diet was over. We should clarify that the Turkish threat also appeared at
least partially to be targeted against Belgrade, since Mehmed II had not forgot-
ten his 1456 defeat before the “key” to the kingdom of Hungary. These rumors
reached Buda around May 28, and compelled a number of Hungarian nobles
to leave the Diet and the capital to go and defend their properties potentially
under attack. On that day, the Venetian Pietro di Tommasi wrote to Cristoforo
Moro, the new doge of Venice, stating that in response to these rumors, the
king had sent to Belgrade mounted crossbowmen [stambachinieri] and
even expressed the desire to go there in person. The Venetian ambassador,
however, expressed certain reservations on the matter:

However, whether he’ll do this or not [i.e., go in person to Belgrade], I

can’t confirm. I say this because I see, Most Serene Prince, that this most
Serene King of Hungary is very poor in ready cash, and has no means to
obtain it immediately. And he cannot spend funds levied for payments
to the Crown of the Most Serene Emperor on other things, and additional
[coin] can’t simply be struck, in the judgment of numerous persons. And
here nothing can be done without funds, or very little.24

The great lords of the kingdom shared this opinion, deploring the fact that
the king had not sooner received money raised for the crusade. And let us re-
call, here, Pietro di Tommasi’s earlier observations, namely that the Hungarian
nobles “were fearing a terrible calamity bringing about the ruin of all the
Christians, pushed to despair by the destitution in which they find themselves.”25
These very specific assertions, which scholars have not fully appreciated,
shed important light on the atmosphere of Matthias’ court circle at this time. It
was torn by conflicting opinions, but generally feared that a trans-Carpathian
adventure with inadequate forces to confront the Turks would be disastrous
for the kingdom. Uncertainty likewise reigned, as we’ve seen, regarding the
direction of the Ottoman offensive. Was the target Wallachia or Belgrade, or
perhaps both? Matthias Corvinus had spent around three million gold duc-
ats on his wars against Frederick III. But according to Article 2 of the 1458

24  
M HH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 90, pp. 143–145, with quotation on p. 144. The Duke of Mantua’s
ambassador to Venice wrote again on July 2 that the Hungarians are very frightened, and
one fears that if God does not protect them, the Turks will occupy Belgrade and then
Hungary (Makušev, ed., Monumenta historica slavorum, vol. 2,, no. II.3, pp. 25–26).
25  
M HH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 90, p. 144 (“Dubito, che questi non facino qualche scapucio cum la
ruina de tutti christiani da necessita conducti alla desperatione.”).
148 CHAPTER 5

Wahlcapitulation, he could not—except when the nation was in danger—

raise troops in the land unless he could personally cover the cost. Wallachia,
however, was not part of Hungary; Vlad was a rather unreliable vassal; and the
“Estates of Hungary” felt they had paid entirely enough to recover the crown.
Thus the Hungarian nobility was not disposed to new sacrifices, even for a cru-
sade against the Turks. After all, it was a general obligation to contribute to this
cause, and Hungary would provide its share only when the other princes paid
theirs. In any case, the king couldn’t use the money raised for recovering the
crown for other purposes, and above all not for a crusade having such feeble
chances of success.

Warrior of the Night

June 1462 would prove to be decisive for Dracula and his country. After reach-
ing Vidin, the Ottoman army successfully forced its way across the Danube on
June 4, but with significant losses. Echoes of the Wallachians’ fierce resistance
this bloody day still resonate in Konstantin Mihailović’s memoirs. A Serb by
birth, he was among the janissaries who established a bridgehead on the left
bank of the river.26 Once the invaders had crossed the river and made their way
to the Wallachian plain, they encountered no further fixed points of resistance.
Mehmed II’s army set forth under a blazing sun. According to one eye-witness,
the heat was so intense that “the ghazis could have grilled kebabs with their
armor.”27 After two weeks of skirmishing and harassing operations, Dracula
launched a surprise attack on the Turkish camp the night of June 17–18.28 His
goal was to kill the sultan and his closest advisors, notably the grand vizier
Mahmud Pasha. Possibly disguised as a Turkish merchant, and able to speak
Turkish fluently, the voievod himself spied on the camp and was able to locate
the army chiefs’ tents.

26  Mihailović, trans. Lachmann, 133–134. For the original Slavic with facing English transla-
tion, see Mihailović, ed. and trans. Stolz, 130 [Slavic]/131 [English].
27  For Tūrsūn Beg’s original Ottoman, see ed. Tulum, 113. For facing Ottoman and German
translation, see Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, pp. 124 [Ottoman]/125 [German]. Additional
translations in Romanian by Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 68–69; and in
English by Treptow, Vlad III Dracula, 192 (though derived from Guboglu and Mehmet).
28  Emanuel Constantin Antoche, “Les guerres irrégulières dans les principautés de Moldavie
et de Valachie (XIV e–XV e siècles),” in Stratégies irrégulières, ed. Hervé Coutau-Bégarie
(Paris: Economica, 2010), 160–183, and also his “Effrayer pour mieux vaincre: L’impact psy-
chologique des armées moldo-valaques sur leurs adversaires (XIVe–XVIe siècles),” Revista
de Istorie Militară 3/4 (2012): 68–92.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 149

According to one source, before launching this attack Vlad supposedly told
his soldiers “Anybody fearing death need not come with me, but should stay
here!”29 Taking 7,000 to 10,000 men divided into two detachments, Dracula
burst upon the enemy three hours after sunset, with torches ablaze and horns
resounding. The Ottoman troops held their ground, but suffered heavy losses
of men and beasts (horses, camels, and pack animals). In the heat of combat,
amidst the cries of the dying and fighting in almost total darkness, Vlad con-
fused the sultan’s tent with those of the viziers Mahmud and Ishak. As day was
approaching, Mehmed II was still safe and sound. Dracula had to give up and
order a retreat. His losses were light, and even if he hadn’t attained his objec-
tive, he had terrified his enemies. At dawn Ali Bey Mihaloğlu, commander of
the akıncılar, who not incidentally had the best horses, launched into pursuit
of the Wallachians, capturing variously 1,000 (according to Chalkokondyles), or
7,000 (according to Turkish chroniclers). Brought before the sultan, they were
all decapitated. Vlad and his remaining troops, however, were able to take ref-
uge within Wallachia’s great forests.
Three versions of Dracula’s bold night attack deserve mention. None of
these is corroborated in other accounts, and hence their veracity is unclear.
But because of their unusual interest, let’s consider them here.
The first is by Nicholas of Modrussa, the Dalmatian bishop whom Pius II
sent to the court of Matthias Corvinus to inquire into Vlad and his relations
with the Hungarian king. Nicolas met Vlad in person, and left a very detailed
portrait of the prince. During his stay in Buda, he wrote:

I have learned, in questioning the participants in this [night] battle, that

the Emperor of the Turks, despairing of his situation that night, secret-
ly left the camp and shamefully took to flight. And he would have kept
going had he not been chastised by his friends and led back to the camp
almost against his will.30

The second account unfolds in the Ottoman camp following the retreat of
Vlad and his cavalry. It is recorded by Laonikos Chalkokondyles, the Greek
historian who was a member of Mahmud Pasha’s close circle. Mahmud Pasha
himself was of Greek descent, on his father’s side.

The sultan’s soldiers had, during the previous night, captured one of
Vlad’s soldiers, and they took him to Mahmud who asked him who he was

29  Bogdan and Panaitescu, eds., Cronicile, 208.

30  Ed. Mercati, 249.
150 CHAPTER 5

and where he was from. As he was answering these questions, Mahmud

also asked him if he knew where Vlad, the ruler of the Wallachia, hap-
pened to be. He replied that he knew exactly but would tell them nothing
whatsoever about it, because he feared Vlad. They said that they would
kill him if he did not tell them what they wanted to know, but he said that
he was more than ready to die, and would not dare to reveal anything
about the man. Mahmud was amazed by this and, while he killed the
man, he commented that with such fear surrounding him and an army
worth the name, that man would surely go far.31

Our third version was written by Fyodor Kuritsyn between 1482 and 1483,
while in Buda as ambassador of Prince Ivan III of Moscow. This recounts what
transpired in Vlad’s camp following the night attack:

He [Dracula] personally examined those who returned from combat

with him. Whoever was wounded in the front, he honored and armed
him as a knight [viteaz]. However, he ordered whoever was wounded in
the back to be impaled upwards from the rectum, saying to him: “You are
not a man, but a woman.”32

Nicholas of Modrussa as well as Chalkokondyles assert that the commander

of the second Wallachian detachment lost courage that night, at the critical
moment, and failed to launch an attack as directed by Vlad. If he had carried
out the prince’s orders, victory would have been assured. Furious, Vlad then
inspected his men and punished those who were wounded in the back, and
thus had fled before the enemy.
After this confrontation, according to Chalkokondyles, the Turkish army
cautiously continued its progress towards the capital of the country, Târgoviște:

31  Translation here from Appendix, p. 353. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.102, pp. 388/390 [Greek], 389–391 [English].
32  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 358, Episode 2. For the orig-
inal Russian with facing French translation, see Skazanie o Drakule voevode, ed. Cazacu,
Episode 2, pp. 176 [Russian]/177 [French]. Cf. English translation by McNally, Episode 2,
p. 200. Let’s recall here that tsar Ivan the Terrible, a great lover of Dracula stories, acted
similarly in 1572 according to the German merchant Heinrich von Staden’s eye-witness
account (Aufzeichnungen über den Moskauer Staat, nach der Handscrift des Preussischen
Staatsarchivs in Hannover, ed. Fritz T. Epstein, Universität Hamburg, Abhandlungen aus
dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde, vol. 34., Series A, Rechts- und Staatswissenschaften,
vol. 5 [Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter, 1964], 81).
The Conqueror of Constantinople 151

Every night that he halted he dug a ditch all around the camp, which he
reinforced on the inside by blocking it with barriers; he also increased the
number of sentries and ordered that his armies should be under arms day
and night. He advanced thus with his army in formation into the interior
of Wallachia and arrived at the city where Vlad had his royal court. The
Wallachians had prepared to be besieged there by the sultan, but they
opened the gates and were ready to receive the sultan himself as he ap-
proached with his army. The sultan then marched through the city and
when he saw no men upon the walls except for artillerymen who were
firing cannons at his army, he neither made camp not invested the place.
He continued on and, after advancing for twenty-seven stades, they
beheld their own men who had been impaled. The sultan’s army entered
into the area of the impalements, which was seventeen stades long and
seven stades wide. There were large stakes there on which, as it was said,
about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted,
quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan was seized
with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his coun-
try a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical un-
derstanding of how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that
a man who had done such things was worth much. The rest of the Turks
were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on the stakes.
There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds
had made their nests in their entrails.33

It is quite evident that this spectacle of a “forest” of stakes had distressed the
sultan and his army, even if the terror expressed in this passage seems more
reflective of Chalkokondyles himself, than the rough Turkish warriors. On
the battlefield, the latter were accustomed to forming skulls of the dead into
pyramids, or sometimes slicing up the living into pieces. But even though, at
this time, impalement was practiced in Turkey as well as Hungary, it was not
a typical spectacle to see a “forest” such as this, measuring three kilometers
long by one wide.34 When John Tiptoft, Count of Worcester, used the same

33  Translation here from Appendix, pp. 353–354. For the original Greek with facing English
translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.103–104, pp. 390/392 [Greek], 391/393
[English].
34  For Hungary, there’s the case of the leaders of the peasant revolt of 1437–1438 who were im-
paled. The penalty was generally applied to “latrones et alii malefactores;” cf. a 1466 letter
of Matthias Corvinus which allows the inhabitants of the Transylvanian village of Agnita
to install gallows, torture wheels, stakes and other such implements destined for “fures,
152 CHAPTER 5

torture around 1470 to punish rebels in Lincolnshire, there were protests

against this method on grounds it was “against the law of the country.”35 These
impalements on British soil are explained by the fact that Tiptoft had been
sent as an ambassador to Pius II, where he certainly became aware of Dracula’s
“discoveries.”
After bypassing Târgoviște—perhaps considering it not worth the effort of
a siege—, Mehmed II veered to the east and, passing through Buzău, fell upon
Brăila, the largest Wallachian port on the Danube. The sultan hadn’t succeeded
in capturing the Romanian prince or destroying his army in a frontal assault.
Moreover, the absence of fortresses in the interior of the country impeded
any prolonged occupation, such as occurred in Greece or Serbia. This was
something specific to Wallachian society and culture, in contrast to Moldavia.
Two hundred years later, in 1655, a great Wallachian boyar, the vornic Preda
Brâncoveanu, clarified this point to the Syrian deacon Paul of Aleppo:

I was one day at the house of the Great Frank [i.e., vornic] of these coun-
tries, who was an ardent lover of history; and he asked me to give him
some account of my native land. I did so, informing him of its stone
buildings and fortified castles, and that we knew neither fear nor fires,
nor any thing of the kind. He answered: “You have spoken the truth: but
we, nevertheless, give thanks to Almighty God, that we have no castles in
our country. For castles and fortresses we possess these mountains and
forests, against which no enemy can prevail. Were it otherwise, and had
we castles in our territory, the Turks would long since have expelled us
from it.” It is for this reason, certainly, that the Turks have never had the
power of seizing Wallachia, or of remaining in it; and the Frank was un-
doubtedly right in what he said.36

latrones, vispiliones, domorum incensores, homicidas, intoxicatores …” See Gündisch,

ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3506, pp. 268–269. Mehmed II seems to have been partial to
impalement, perhaps after his experience in Wallachia. See De Promontorio de Campis,
ed. Babinger, 89–92. Impalement was utilized in Byzantium in cases of rebellion. For ex-
amples, see John Skylitzes: A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, trans. John Wortley
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 44, 93, 149, 194, 319 etc.
35  Florescu and McNally, Dracula: A Biography, 4.
36  Paul of Aleppo, trans. Belfour, vol. 2, 396. For the original Arabic with facing French trans-
lation, see Paul of Aleppo, ed. and trans. Radu, vol. 24, fasc. 4, p. 396. For Romanian trans-
lations see Alexandrescu-Dersca Bulgaru’s version in Holban, ed., Călători străini, vol. 6,
256, and more recently Feodorov’s in Paul din Alep, pp. 408–409.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 153

Vlad remained elusive and continued, from the shelter of impenetrable forests,
to harass the enemy’s light cavalry. Thus far the Ottoman army’s sole triumph
was capturing peasants and livestock—Chalkokondyles puts the figure at
200,000, mainly horses and cattle.37 Nothing very glorious for one of the most
powerful armies of the world.
Vlad, for his part, realized that the sultan was moving east to avoid being
surprised by a Hungarian attack, and also to depart Wallachia. It was precise-
ly here, in the Danubian lowlands, that the last act of this confrontation was
played out.
While Dracula was following the Ottoman army’s movements, a detach-
ment of 6,000 which he had previously sent east was standing guard against
the prince of Moldavia. Unfortunately, the disagreement between Stephen
and Vlad was unresolved, and the situation degenerated rapidly. Now a sec-
ond front emerged, and at the worst possible moment for the Wallachians.
Chalkokondyles, our best source for this campaign,38 explains that:

Vlad divided his army into two parts, keeping one part with him and
sending the other against the ruler of Moldavia so that, if the latter made
an attempt to invade, these men would defend their land and now allow
him to do so. For the ruler of Moldavia had fallen out with Vlad and was
at war with him for the following reasons. He had sent envoys to Sultan
Mehmed calling on his assistance and saying that he was ready to join
him in this war. The sultan was pleased with the ruler’s proposal and or-
dered his own general to act accordingly, that is to join with the admiral
on the river and besiege the city called Kilia that belonged to Vlad, which
is located at the mouth of the river. As for the ruler of Moldavia, he as-
sembled an army from his land and went to the sultan’s fleet, directly to
the city of Kilia, in order to join forces with the admiral. When the ruler
of Moldavia joined up with the sultan’s army, they besieged the city to-
gether. They attacked it for many days but were repulsed and lost a few
men. As they were making no progress toward capturing the city, both
of them departed. The Moldavian then moved to invade the land of the

37  “The sultan led many slaves away from that land, for he henceforth allowed his cavalry
raiders to raid extensive tracts of it. They would capture slaves and profit greatly. They also
drove away more than 200,000 pack animals, horses, and cattle” (Translation here from
Appendix, p. 355. For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans.
Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.107, pp. 396 [Greek]/397 [English]).
38  His reporting here occupies some five percent of his historical work, which, let us not
forget, covers nearly two centuries.
154 CHAPTER 5

Wallachians, but was prevented by the unit of Vlad’s army that had been
assigned right there to protect the land. Vlad himself had the larger part
of the army and he marched through the forests waiting to see where the
sultan’s army would go.39

The Turko-Moldavian siege of Kilia was a bitter failure. The Venetian bailò at
Constantinople reported that the operations lasted only eight days, but that
the Ottoman losses were nevertheless considerable.40 On this score, the fif-
teenth century Moldavian chronicles clarify that on June 22 prince Stephen
was wounded in the left ankle by a projectile, and on account of this he
lifted the siege.41 Despite many treatments, his wound never healed, and
Stephen the Great died of gangrene in 1504.
Mehmed’s campaign was nearing its end. Following the sultan’s activ-
ity at Târgoviște, Vlad proceeded to Kilia, leaving behind a detachment of a
few thousand men to monitor the Ottomans’ movements. Its commander
rashly attacked the enemy forces and suffered heavy losses. Two thousand
Wallachian heads were brought to the sultan, stuck on the ends of Turkish
cavalry lances. Shortly after, on the road leading to the Danube, Mehmed II
encountered Dracula, who was returning from Kilia. On this occasion the
Wallachians launched an attack in the area of the hills neighboring Buzău, but
were repelled with heavy losses. Despite this minor victory, Mehmed II ordered
retreat. On July 11, 1462, he arrived back in Edirne. Meanwhile Ali Mihaloğlu
and his akıncılar were covering the rear of the army, which was safely trans-
porting its booty to the right bank of the Danube. The Ottoman campaign in
Wallachia was finished.42

39  Translation here from Appendix, pp. 350–351. For the original Greek with facing English
translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.93–94, pp. 378–380 [Greekk]/379–381
[English].
40  For Domenico Balbi’s report, see MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 105, pp. 167–168. Balbi refers to
Kilia as “Costomo,” i.e., Lycostomo (p. 168), a rather widespread confusion. For clarifica-
tion of the toponyms, see Octavian Iliescu, “Nouvelles contributions à la géographie his-
torique de la mer Noire,” Il Mar Nero: Annali di archeologia e storia 1 (1994): 236–258, and
also his “De nouveau sur Kilia et Licostomo,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 33, nos. 1–2 (1994):
159–167. A Bolognese chronicle records an Ottoman defeat “per acqua e per terra” on June
23. For this see Stoicescu, Vlad Ţepeș, 114, and Vlad Ţepeș: Prince of Wallachia, 90–91.
41  Bogdan and Panaitescu, eds., Cronicile, 49, 61.
42  It emerges from contemporary sources that the sultan had sent messengers to Edirne to
forbid the population from hostile manifestations during his entry to the city. Such mani-
festations did take place, however, given the deplorable state of the army (Bianu, “Ștefan
cel Mare,” 39–41). A number of western sources, especially Venetian, affirm that the sultan
The Conqueror of Constantinople 155

Romanian historians have spilt much ink in discussing this campaign. Was
it a victory or defeat for the Turks? Let’s consider, then, the results of this expe-
dition in Wallachian territory.
First of all, the country was horribly pillaged and ravaged. In 1475, its popula-
tion was only two thirds of what it was before 1457, and while one can surely
attribute some of this demographic contraction to Vlad’s cruelties, the losses
suffered in 1462 must have been substantial.
Let us now evaluate this military enterprise in relationship to Mehmed II’s
strategic objectives. Here it is clear that these were only partially attained, if
at all. Vlad was neither captured nor removed from the throne. Though very
much tested, his army endured and was able to inflict serious damage to the
Moldavian and Ottoman forces. Kilia hadn’t fallen, and the boyars, who con-
ferred legitimacy on the princes through the process of election, are very largely
still favorable to Vlad. The Ottomans didn’t occupy any new cities or fortresses
beyond what they had already held before 1462. Indeed, we may wonder if the
sultan really intended to absorb the country into Ottoman territory, placing a
bey at the head and eliminating the native political elites, as had transpired
in the Balkans and elsewhere. Mehmed II’s biographer Franz Babinger is cat-
egorical on this point:

The size of this army, which must have been very considerable even if the
recorded figures are exaggerated [i.e., 150,000–250,000], seems to suggest
that Mehmed’s intention was not only to bring about a change of princes
but to take possession of Wallachia as he had of Serbia and Greece. True,
he took along Radu, who could if necessary serve as a compliant pretend-
er to the Wallachian throne, but what he had in mind seems to have been
complete occupation.43

In any case, the sultan hadn’t succeeded in achieving his key goals, other than
avenging his ambassadors’ deaths, and plundering cities and towns along
the Danube line. Finally, this campaign was very costly when one considers the
price of mobilizing such a vast fighting force (60,000–80,000 combatants).
Vlad had assuredly lost much, in human terms (several thousand dead, thou-
sands captured) as well as in goods (villages pillaged and destroyed, livestock
seriously diminished), but these kinds of assessments meant little to him, or

had been mangled in Wallachia and that Vlad’s victory was indubitable. Cf. Stoicescu,
Vlad Ţepeș, 115–119, and Vlad Ţepeș: Prince of Wallachia, 91–95. Also Andreescu, Vlad the
Impaler, 123–126.
43  Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time, 205.
156 CHAPTER 5

at least very little. The essential thing for him was maintaining his power, and
not sharing it with anyone.

Radu the Handsome Assumes Power

It’s precisely at this point that Mehmed II decided to attack Dracula. When he
departed Wallachia, the sultan left Vlad’s brother Radu, whose epithet was also
Dracula, in Brăila. This great Danubian port was located opposite Ottoman ter-
ritory which, at that time, was the Dobrogea. On the west and north it was
bounded by the lower Danube, and on the east by the Black Sea. Dracula’s
brother was present on this campaign more in his capacity as one of the sul-
tan’s favorites, rather than official candidate for the Wallachian throne. Let us
recall that this young man, born around 1438–49 from Vlad Dracul’s second
marriage to a Moldavia princess, had in 1444 been sent to the Ottomans as
a hostage, along with his half-brother Vlad. Initially kept in Anatolia, in 1447
they were transferred to Edirne, after their father concluded peace with sul-
tan Murad II. After Vlad departed for Wallachia in 1448, Radu remained at the
imperial palace in Edirne along with other sons of Christian princes. Radu
was twelve or thirteen when he was presented to Mehmed II, after ascending
the throne in February 1451. Reputed to be very good looking, he is known in
Romanian history as “Radu the Handsome.” Chalkokondyles is our best source
for understanding the nature of the relationship between the sultan and this
young man:

The sultan spent that winter [i.e., 1461–1462] in his palace and sum-
moned Vlad, the son of Dracul and ruler of Wallachia, as he already had
his younger brother [Radu] at the court, keeping him as his lover and
maintaining him. It happened that the sultan was almost killed by the
boy when he had wanted to have sex with him. This was when he had first
gained the throne and was preparing to campaign against Karaman. He
was in love with the boy and invited him for conversation, and then as a
sign of his respect he invited him for drinks to his bedchamber. The boy
did not expect to suffer such a thing from the sultan, and when he saw
the sultan approaching him with that intention, he fought him off and
refused to consent to intercourse with him. The sultan kissed the unwill-
ing boy, who drew a dagger and struck the sultan on his thigh. He then
fled in whatever direction he could find. The doctors were able to treat
the sultan’s wound. The boy had climbed up a tree there and was hiding.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 157

When the sultan packed up and left, the boy came down from the tree,
began his journey, and shortly afterward, arrived at the Porte and became
the sultan’s lover. The sultan was used to having relations no less with
men who shared his own inclinations. For he was always spending his
time in the close company of such people, both day and night, but he did
not usually have relations with men who were not of his own race, except
for brief periods of time.44

We may suppose, from this evidence, that the favor Radu enjoyed with the sul-
tan was of a purely sensual nature, and had nothing to do with his intellectual
qualities—even if Chalkokondyles believed that it was expressly owing to Radu
that Vlad obtained the throne in 1456. This ambiguous relationship didn’t im-
pede Radu from marrying a Christian woman—namely Maria Despina, a scion
of the Serbian despots—, who produced a daughter also called Maria. In 1473,
she and her mother were captured by the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great.
The young Maria, also called Voichiţa, would become Stephen’s third and last
wife, and their son Bogdan Vlad succeeded Stephen as prince of Moldavia.
In July 1462, Radu was thus in Brăila “to tempt the souls of the Wallachians
who might wish to abandon Dracula,” according to the Venetian bailò in
Constatinople.45 His aim, according to Chalkokondyles, was “to approach the
Wallachians and subject the land to his authority.” Chalkokondyles even com-
posed a fictitious dialogue between Radu and Wallachians who came to Brăila
to buy back enslaved friends and relatives:

Dracul the Younger [i.e., Radu] called on each man, saying, “O Wallachians,
what do you think the future holds for you? Do you not know how much
power the sultan has, that his armies will easily be able to reach you,
plunder the land, and we will lose whatever we have left? Why do you not
becomes friends of the sultan? There will then be a respite for you
throughout the land and in your households. For you know that at the
present there are no livestock or pack animals left. You have suffered
all these horrible things on account of my brother, and you ingratiate
yourselves with a most unholy man who has brought such harm upon

44  Translation here from Appendix, p. 347. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.82, pp. 366/368 [Greek], 369/371
[English].
45  Domenico Balbi, MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 105, p. 168.
158 CHAPTER 5

Wallachia as we have not heard has been visited upon any other part of
the earth.”46

The impact of this discourse was immediate:

Those were the messages that he [i.e., Radu] sent to the Wallachians who
had come to ransom their slaves. He persuaded them and urged them to
tell the others and to come to him with confidence. They met and decided
that this was preferable to Vlad’s rule. A few of them went and assembled
around the younger brother. When the rest of the Wallachians realized
this, they immediately abandoned Vlad and went over to his brother.
When his army was assembled, he set out to overturn the principality. He
brought in at the same time an army from the sultan and subjected the
land. As for his brother [i.e., Vlad Dracula], when the Wallachians went
over to his brother and he realized that all the murder that he had previ-
ously committed was now in vain, he went off to the Hungarians.47

While Radu was seizing power in Wallachia, Matthias Corvinus was still await-
ing papal and Venetian subsidies to proceed against the Turks. On June 14, 1462,
the Venetian ambassador announced that the king would depart in six to eight
days for the camp at Szeged, whence he was planning to come to assist Vlad.
For, as Pietro di Tommasi adds, “if Wallachia is subjugated, Transylvania, which
represents two thirds of the kingdom, and the best parts, will go down as well.”48
It seems that fears of a Turkish attack on Belgrade had long persisted at the
court in Buda. This might explain the king’s sluggishness, but it’s also likely that
he was biding his time awaiting Frederick III’s response to the embassy he sent
June 7, communicating the Hungarian Diet’s approval for the projected treaty.
The news from Wallachia—the retreat of the Ottoman army, Vlad’s difficult
situation in being pursued by his own half-brother and threatened by voievod
Stephen of Moldavia—was hardly the sort to hasten Matthias Corvinus’s
intervention. It was not until late July that he left Buda. He didn’t arrive in
Transylvania until September, and reached Sibiu a bit before the 30th. Whether
or not it was deliberate, this delay allowed him to gather more extensive infor-
mation and decide what course to follow on the campaign. Matthias brought

46  Translation here from Appendix, p. 355. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see, ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.108, pp. 396/398 [Greek], 397/399 [English].
47  Translation here from Appendix, p. 355. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see, ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.109, pp. 398 [Greek]/399 [English].
48  M HH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 91, p. 147.
The Conqueror of Constantinople 159

with him the Venetian ambassador, Pietro di Tommasi, whose correspondence

with the Doge Cristoforo Moro constitutes our only source for understanding
the king’s journey down into Transylvania.
When the king arrived in Transylvania, Mehmed II had long since left
Wallachia, where Vlad and Radu had clashed numerous times, with no de-
cisive military result. The sultan’s calculations had been shrewd. Radu had
won the support of the boyars hostile to Vlad, and most importantly of the
Transylvanian Saxons and Szeklers, who controlled most of the trade with
the east flowing through Brăila and Kilia. Protecting this access route to the
Black Sea had been one of the constants of Hungarian policy since the middle
of the fourteenth century.49 Let us recall that the Saxons of Brașov considered
Vlad’s closure of the Brăila route a declaration of war, since it meant the loss
of important commercial privileges held since 1358. Granting the staple right
to Romanian cities effectively meant closure of the only access route from
Hungary to the Black Sea. Matthias Corvinus’ position on this point is abso-
lutely clear, and it explains in large part his subsequent stance.
During his long stay in Sibiu (September and October) and Brașov
(November and part of December), the Hungarian king was doubtless fully
briefed on this situation. Dracula’s grant of the staple right to the Wallachian
cities, and the consequent closure of the commercial route to the Black Sea,
dealt a severe blow to Sibiu and Brașov’s prosperity. Moreover, the kingdom
as a whole has been harmed, since an important source of revenues had been
lost. On the other hand, Radu’s presence in Brăila since July enabled the re-
opening of this vital commercial route for Transylvania. Also, as of July or
August, Matthias Corvinus had made peace with Stephen of Moldavia, who
renounced his claims on Kilia and, to help defray damages, offered to assist
financially in the recovery of the crown.50 In a letter dated August 15, the count

49  Georghe I. Brătianu, La Mer Noire des origines à la conquête ottomane, Acta historica
(Monachium), vol. 9 (Munich: Societas academica Dacoromana, 1969), esp. 279–334;
Wolfgang Stromer von Reichenbach, “Die Schwarzmeer- und Levante-Politik Sigismunds
von Luxemburg und der Schwarzmeer-Handel oberdeutscher und hansischer
Handelshäuser 1385–1453,” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 44 (1974): 601–610;
Papacostea, “Kilia et la politique orientale de Sigismund de Luxembourg,” 421–436, and
also his “Începuturile politicii comerciale a Moldovei și Ţării Românești (secolele XIV–
XV),” in his Geneza statului în Evul Mediu românesc, 163–220.
50  See Matthias’ letter of August 10, 1462, summarized by Karl Nehring, “Quellen zur un-
garischen Außenpolitik in der zweiten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts,” Lévéltari Közlemények
47 (1976): 88, no. 4 (in Teil I: Briefe und Urkunden [Regesten]). In so doing, Stephen was
stimulated by Matthias’ invitation to Peter Aron to come to Buda. The former prince of
Moldavia, Peter was Stephen’s enemy and pretender to the throne between 1457 and 1470.
160 CHAPTER 5

of the Szeklers and the Bârsa country announced that a peace treaty had been
concluded with “the illustrious Prince Radu.” It contained, moreover, an aston-
ishing post-scriptum:

You shouldn’t fear anything from the king, the voievod [of Transylvania,
or Wallachia?], and the nobles of the kingdom, since they are occupied
with other things.51

Clearly the Saxon burghers, the Szeklers, and a part of the Transylvanian
nobility had embraced Radu’s party since July and August 1462, well before
Matthias Corvinus’ arrival in Sibiu and Brașov. Considering his initial reti-
cence to aid Dracula militarily, and now the Transylvanians’ decision to favor
Radu, Matthias’ view of the overall situation could not have been indifferent.
Particularly since the Transylvanians were offering a financial contribution for
the recovery of his crown.

Crusade or Internal Peace?

The choices Matthias faced were delicate indeed. On the one hand, the pa-
pacy and Venice had provided him significant sums to attack Mehmed II, who
himself had initially feared a Hungarian intervention in Serbia and Greece.52
On the other hand, the Saxon cities and Szekler notables exhibited no will-
ingness to fight the Turks or come to Dracula’s aid, with whom they’d had a
very serious dispute. For Matthias, the support of Transylvania was vital, in
that it was a rich province, the revenues from which constituted two thirds
of the kingdom’s overall income. Moreover, Matthias was confronted by a pa-
rade of Transylvanian and Wallachian refugees who complained bitterly of the

51  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. XCIX, p. 58.

52  See the letter which Antonio Loredano, captain of Modon, and Alois Gabriel, rector of
Candia, addressed to the doge of Venice on August 12. According to an Albanian slave
who had fled from Edirne, after the Wallachian campaign, Mehmed II, doubting that the
Hungarians would come to Vlad’s aid, “fece la volta de mar Magior et cum grandissima in-
comodità de victualie per lo exercito e cavalli loro, ritorno in Andrinopolli mal in ordine,
come è dicto. Item che’l dicto signor non deliberava de licentiar el dicto exercito suo de
Andrinopolli, dubitando che Hungari non passino in Grecia. […] In questa Amorea licet i
Turchi habino facto certa demostrazione de letitia, davano a sapere a soy subditi che’l suo
signore era ritornato cum victoria, tamen stano uniti in le parte de Corinto et tuti spav-
entati perche alcune catune de Albanesi havevano rebellado” (Bianu, “Ștefan cel Mare,”
40–41).
The Conqueror of Constantinople 161

persecutions they’d been subjected to since 1456. This is clearly confirmed by

Chalkokondyles:

But the Hungarians, whose people he had killed in Wallachia, brought

him on a capital charge before their king, the son of Hunyadi, and placed
him on trial under the most serious accusations, that is of having killed
those men unjustly.53

What to do? Transferring support to Radu had the advantage of reducing the
problem posed by Vlad to the level of a Wallachian internal conflict. In other
words, the king could wash his hands of it. And this solution was practical on
other grounds. The 1462 campaigning season was over, and the Carpathian
passes would soon become problematic owing to bad weather, and then would
be completely blocked by the snow.
Another important potential problem remained, namely Vlad and his at-
titude. The Wallachian prince, we are told by Michael Beheim, had visited
Brașov in November with a large retinue. Matthias Corvinus awaited him “with
many counts, / barons, lords, knights, and squires.”54 The two men spent at
least five weeks in Brașov. Throughout their conversations they certainly cov-
ered the past, present, and future. What would result from these discussions?
How to address the problem of Radu’s presence in Wallachia?
Matthias had already formed his conclusions about his vassal, but the dis-
cussions continued. There was even the question of Vlad’s marriage with a
young relative of the king. At last this alliance, which so worried Mehmed II,
could finally be realized. Curiously, the only source which mentions this is the
1463 German pamphlet of which there are four known manuscript copies. The
last page of the printed text was already missing when three copies were pro-
duced. Only the fourth, discovered twenty years ago in London, is complete. It
contains the last episode of the account, which deals with Dracula’s wedding:

Now observe how the old governor of Hungary [a confusion with

Matthias Corvinus] captured Dracula. The governor of Hungary wrote [to

53  Translation here from Appendix, p. 356. For the original Greek with facing English
translation, see ed. and trans., ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 10.1, pp. 400 [Greek]/401
[English].
54  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, p. 345, ll. 1020–1021. For
the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald, ll.
1020–1021, p. 228. For the original German with facing French translation, see Beiheim, ed.
Cazacu, ll. 1020–1021, pp. 150 [German]/151 [French].
162 CHAPTER 5

Dracula, saying] he wanted to give Dracula his daughter in marriage. And

so Dracula came, in splendid [attire], with nine hundred horses, and was
very well received. And [the governor] gave him his daughter in words,
but not in deeds and with [his heart], only for appearance. And once the
marriage was completed, [Dracula’s] father-in-law accompanied him
with a large retinue, set forth to Dracula’s country, and then stopped and
said: “Lord the husband,55 I’ve accompanied you enough.” And Dracula
answered: “Yes, lord.” He was now sure that he would ride home again.
And they surrounded [Dracula] and captured him. And he is still alive.56

Michael Beheim, utilizing information from someone close to Matthias, is silent

on this union, but describes the two princes—having resolved to go on cam-
paign against the Turks—proceeding six miles into the interior of Wallachia,
and arriving at castle Königstein (Piatra Craiului) in the Carpathians, on the
road leading to Târgoviște:

At that place Dracula was set upon / by a lord, liegeman of the king. /
He was known far and wide: / Jan Giskra, he was called, / he who first
approached Dracula, / arresting and taking him prisoner, / [Dracula] the
cowardly one. / In Wallachia, his land, / Dracula was shackled and kept
under restraint. / This was done [in Wallachia] / because he was [there]
bereft of both this king’s safe conduct and protection, / being outside
[Matthias’] area of administration. / In Hungary, Dracula / was delivered
over to the king and conducted to /a castle called Visegrád. / He has been
incarcerated since then.57

The Skazanie o Drakule voevode of 1486 contains a significant detail which per-
haps completes the picture. Vlad was delivered to the king by his own men,

55  In the translation I made in 1988, I rendered “Herr der ayden” as “Lord of the pagans,”
which admittedly didn’t make much sense. I’ve subsequently abandoned this interpreta-
tion, preferring to read “ayden” as the old German for “Eidam,” or husband.
56  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 316, Episode 36. For the original German
with accompanying French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 36,
pp. 102 [German], 101/103 [French]). Dieter Harmening first edited this text in Der Anfang
von Dracula: Zur Geschichte von Geschichten, Quellen und Forschungen zur europäisch-
en Ethnologie, vol. 1 (Würzburg: Dr. Johannes Königshausen and Dr. Thomas Neumann,
1983), 20–25.
57  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, p. 346, ll. 1054–1070. For
the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald, ll.
1054–1070, p. 239. For the original German with facing French translation, see Beheim, ed.
Cazacu, ll. 1054–1070, pp. 152 [German]/153 [French].
The Conqueror of Constantinople 163

and thus “because of a revolt.”58 This clarification, whatever its accuracy, at

least reflects the complexity of the affair.
Vlad’s arrest took place on November 25 or 26, 1462. We know this from
a letter of a Venetian ambassador, who alas does not clarify what prompted
Matthias Corvinus to this action. It is, however, curiously reminiscent of the
arrest of Michael Szilágyi four years earlier. The latter, we may recall, was
the king’s uncle, and his arrest likewise transpired after a confrontation
with the Turks—in Serbia, in this case. But what had happened? Why was
Vlad arrested in this manner, and thrown in prison? While indeed a restless
vassal, he was sincerely loyal to the king and a great adversary to the Turks,
whom he been battling for several months. Why imprison him on the eve of a
military campaign which had the status of a crusade sanctioned by the pope?59
These questions are not new, and have often been posed before, including by
contemporaries curious to comprehend what motivated such a grave deci-
sion. And especially by the two powers that had disbursed funds to convince
Matthias Corvinus to head forth on crusade along with Dracula—Pope Pius II
and Venice.
Throughout all of 1463, the Hungarian king Corvinus endeavored to re-
spond to such questions—writing letters, holding discussions with papal
and Venetian envoys, sending around documents, and as a last resort appeal-
ing to the press to popularize in German, a language targeted for the wider
public, the real or fictitious deeds of Vlad Dracula, the great tyrant. A propa-
ganda campaign foreshadowing modern times.

58  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 361, and note 7. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see Skazanie o Drakule voevode, ed.
Cazacu, Episode 14, pp. 200 [Russian]/201 [French].
59  At the end of August or beginning of September, Matthias Corvinus’ envoy met with Pope
Pius II at Abbadia bearing this message: “The Sultan was offering the Hungarians peace
if they would relinquish Wallachia and Bosnia. He was making elaborate preparations for
war and would undoubtedly invade Hungary with a strong force if they did not accept
his terms. The King did not think it well-advised to betray his allies (who were also his
subjects) to the enemy, but on the other hand he was not strong enough to withstand so
overwhelming a war. He begged that he might not be left alone. If Hungary yielded to the
Turks they might expect to see Turkish arms in Italy. He knew Mahomet’s purpose: to win
over the empire of the west. If he subdued the Hungarians, nothing else would be hard
for him but they must not be asked for what they could not give. The Pope, though he was
hard pushed by the heavy cost of the war in Italy and could scarcely find money for that,
nevertheless said he would hire at his own expense 1,000 cavalry to reinforce the King
when he took the field. The Venetians too would help. He urged them not to lose heart;
next year it would be possible to send more substantial aid” (Pius II, Commentaries of
Pius II, Books VI–IX, trans. Gragg, 740). For the original Latin, see ed. Totaro, vol. 2,
1670–1673.
 CHAPTER 6

Propaganda, Exile, and Death (1463–1476)

Immediately after returning to Hungary, king Matthias undertook to justify to

his financial backers why the crusade was halted, and the rationale for the arrest
of the prince of Wallachia. His first concern was to connect the two actions in a
cause and effect relationship, which as we’ll see was hardly the case. Matthias
argued that his about-face was due to the treachery of Vlad Dracula, who was
scheming, with the help of Mehmed II, to invade and occupy Transylvania and
Hungary—thus facilitating an Ottoman offensive against Europe. But how can
we explain this sudden change of heart of a prince who had defied the sultan,
and refused till now all compromise with his enemies?

The Improbable Treachery

It was to this close questioning that the king and his counselors had to re-
spond, and quickly. To this end, Matthias dispatched the bishop of Csanád to
Rome, and the prior of Pécs (Fünfkirchen) to Venice. These ambassadors had
to justify the halt of the campaign against the Turks, and the neutralization of
the prince of Wallachia. To do this, the two had to develop a discourse vilifying
Vlad and explaining why his crimes constituted an impediment to continuing
the crusade.
Essentially, they focused on Dracula’s flagrant treachery. Three incriminat-
ing letters, allegedly written by Vlad, were presented to the Holy Father as proof
of the voievod’s treason. These were respectively addressed to Mehmed II,
to a “Bassa” (pasha, probably the grand vizier Mahmud Pasha), and to the
prince of “Thoenona” (?), and had been intercepted in some miraculous fash-
ion. The original texts presumably were composed in “Bulgarian,” or rather
Slavo-Romanian, and have disappeared. In his memoirs, however, Pope Pius II
reproduced a Latin translation of Vlad’s alleged letter to the sultan:1

To the emperor of all emperors and lord of all lords under the sun, the
great Amurato, the great Sultan Maumeth, blessed in all things, [I] Johann
voievod, lord of Wallachia, [offer my] humble service. I, the servant of
Your Majesty, inform you that I am setting out this day with an army for

1  The chancery in Buda oversaw the Latin translation of this text, to which only Pius II refers.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_007

Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 165

my own land and I trust in God that I shall reach it unless I am prevented
by your command. Therefore I humbly beseech Your Majesty not to have
regard to my error and my great sin, since in ignorance I sinned against
you and did evil in your land. But may your clemency have pity on me and
grant that I may send envoys to you. I know all the regions of Transylvania
and all Hungary and am familiar with the character of the various
regions and conditions there. If it so pleases Your Majesty, I can in atone-
ment for my sin hand over to you all Transylvania, the possession of
which will enable you to bring all Hungary under your power. My envoys
will tell you more. So long as I live I will serve you with unshaken loy-
alty. May God grant many years to your great empire. Written at Cisnădie
[Ruetel], November 7, 1462.2

The Latin translation is incomplete. Dracula appears under the name “Johann,”
which name, in Romanian chancery practice, characteristically precedes the
reigning prince’s name. This was effectively a nomen sacrum, a theophoric
name, which in Hebrew means “the grace of God.” Its usage in Romanian
documents is a borrowing from older Bulgarian diplomatic practice. Thus,
in the complete Latin translation, one would have read Dracula’s name as
“Johann Vlad.”
The letter was allegedly written at Cisnădie (Ruetel), a Saxon locality
near the Wallachian border, dependent on the Stuhl of Sibiu. From the very
outset, the content of the letter is astonishing. Vlad announces that he and
his army left that same day for Wallachia, whereas in reality he was at that
time traveling towards Brașov, where Matthias Corvinus had awaited him since
November 1. Why would Vlad have decided to go to Wallachia, at this precise
moment, when he had a meeting with King Matthias to celebrate the negoti-
ated marriage? There was nothing compelling him to return to his country,
which he had just left.
Let’s proceed, now, to the root of the question. The letter claims that Vlad
asked the sultan for pardon, and offered his guidance and help to occupy
Transylvania. From there Mehmed could easily invade Hungary, whose situa-
tion, Vlad boasts, he knows very well. But what would Vlad have intended with
this offer? Vengeance upon the Saxons and Szeklers who were hostile to him,
and hadn’t lifted a finger to come to his aid? Or reprisal against his suzerain
Matthias Corvinus, who hadn’t helped him in his moments of greatest peril?
Or vengeance on them both?

2  Commentaries of Pius II, Books X–XIII, trans. Gragg, 739; for the Latin original, see ed. Totaro,
2162–2164.
166 CHAPTER 6

Let’s examine this more carefully. What, in fact, could Vlad have hoped from
such an about face? To reinforce his position on the throne of Wallachia, by
offering to accompany the sultan on a campaign to conquer Transylvania and
Hungary? But if so, how could he still nourish illusions about his personal fate,
and that of his country, which he had abandoned to his half-brother? The ma-
jority of the boyars recognized Radu, and the sultan favored him. It’s difficult to
imagine Mehmed II offering the crown to Vlad in recognition of hypothetical
services. And since Matthias Corvinus was now the only one who could help
him recover the throne, why would Vlad betray him even before their meeting?
All of these considerations substantiate the thesis that this letter was forged
by Vlad’s adversaries in order to discredit him in the eyes of the king of Hungary.
The disappearance of the original letter complicates the investigation, but, in
our opinion, the forgery is rather crude and doesn’t stand up to careful scrutiny.
Whatever the case, this is all that Matthias Corvinus had to offer the pope
and the Venetians by way of explanation. To this he appended a nonsensical
text recounting Vlad’s abominable deeds, probably supplied by the Saxons
and the voievod’s enemies. This Pope Pius II dutifully entered in his memoirs.
At the same time, the king proclaimed himself ready to leave on campaign
against the Turks—this time in Bosnia, where king Stephen Tomašević’s fate
would play out the following spring.
In its response sent January 15, 1463, Venice seemed to accept Matthias’
explanations. In truth she was awaiting the return of her ambassador from
Hungary, with more detailed information. Pietro di Tommasi had sent three
letters from Transylvania dated November 1, 3, and 26, but his courier had been
blocked on Matthias Corvinus’ express orders. It was only after November 26
and Dracula’s arrest that the ambassador was again able to dispatch his re-
ports. As we know today, these contained details on Vlad’s arrest which the
king had held back in his first communication.
Following Pietro di Tommasi’s return, Venice sent a new ambassador to Buda
to discuss with King Matthias organizing a war against the Turks, with the col-
laboration of France, Bohemia, Poland, and Bavaria. The instructions provided
for its plenipotentiary Giovanni Aymo contain a significant passage. He was
asked to gather information on Vlad’s arrest, the new prince of Wallachia (i.e.,
Radu), and the latter’s relations with Matthias Corvinus. Clearly the intent here
was to uncover possible secret negotiations with the Turks, a recurring para-
noia in the diplomacy of the times.3
We are unfortunately not informed on the results of Giovanni Aymo’s inves-
tigations. But he conducted his mission almost simultaneously with another,

3  M HH AE, vol. 4 [A], no. 108, pp. 172–173; no. 121, pp. 192–194.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 167

namely that led by Pope Pius II’s legate Nicholas Machinense, bishop of Modrus
(Modrussa, in Dalmatia). Dispatched first to the king of Bosnia, Nicholas sub-
sequently arrived at the court in Buda early in 1463, to solicit king Matthias’ aid
against the Turks, who were threatening Bosnia.4 On this occasion, the sover-
eign of Hungary felt compelled to present his illustrious prisoner, Dracula, to
the papal legate. And the bishop has left us the only eye-witness account of the
voievod known to this day. Even more interesting, Matthias and his courtiers
provided the legate with a description of the tyrant’s cruelties, another indica-
tion that these stories originated in the chancellery at Buda:

The king recounted, and the secretaries who were present at [his] de-
scription confirmed, that 40,000 people of both sexes, and of various
ages, who belonged to the enemy faction, had been killed a short while
ago on [Vlad’s] orders, and with the most refined tortures. Some of them
died [being] crushed under the wheels of carts; others, naked, had their
skin flayed off down to [their] entrails; others were placed on stakes, or
roasted upon burning coals; others were impaled through the head, the
breast, the navel; others through the bottom (which is shameful to relate)
and the middle of their entrails. And, so that no form of cruelty be miss-
ing, he placed stakes in mothers’ breasts and impaled their infants there.
And finally, he killed others in [even] more terrible ways, torturing them
first with the diverse torments which the atrocious cruelty of the most
abominable tyrant was able to invent.5

As Șerban Papacostea has ably shown, King Matthias’ suddenly awakened sen-
sitivity to Vlad’s cruelties was not due to chance, but rather his imperative need
to justify his policies.

The 1463 German Pamphlet

After the pope and Venice, it was now the German cities’ turn. Let us recall that
the June-July 1463 visit of the Hungarian delegation, for purposes of conclud-
ing the Wiener-Neustadt Treaty, coincided with the appearance of a German

4  Commentaries of Pius II, Books X–XIII, trans. Gragg, 742–43, 768; for the Latin originals, ed.
Totaro, 2164–2171, 2263–2265.
5  Ed. Mercati, 248. For another English translation, see Florescu and McNally, Dracula: A
Biography of Vlad the Impaler 1431–1476, p. 77. Also see Papacostea, “Cu privire la geneza și
răspîndirea povestirilor,” 163.
168 CHAPTER 6

pamphlet entitled Geschichte Drakole Waide [The History of Voievod Dracula],

typically abbreviated as GDW. This probably was printed in Vienna by Ulrich
Han.6 The origin of this text takes us back to Transylvania and Hungary, where
only the Saxons could have known certain details that appear in the composi-
tion. Some of its component themes are found in the letters of Prince Dan
(from 1459 to 1460), whose source of information was the burghers of Brașov.
Others came from Sibiu and its environs, which were also victims of Vlad’s at-
tacks. Testimony of ambassadors from Hungary, Brașov, and Siebenbürgen is
cited at least two times. Vlad’s letter of February 11, 1462, addressed to King
Matthias, is also a contributing source. In contrast to those episodes which are
dated, or have some chronological framework, another category of anecdotes
is rather vague in character, with no specific citation of names, localities, in-
dividuals, or dates. These passages doubtless owe their origin to Wallachian
refugees in Transylvania whose information came from hearsay, and hence the
absence of precise detail.7
In format, this pamphlet—an incunabulum—was a brochure consisting
of six sheets, with a portrait of Vlad on the first page. No exemplar has sur-
vived. We know, however, of no less than four copies produced in subsequent
years, and preserved in Austria (the monastery of Lambach, but this manu-
script disappeared in the early twentieth century), in Switzerland (the mon-
astery of Sankt Gallen), in France (municipal library of Colmar), and in Great
Britain (British Library). Only the British Library manuscript is complete, but
that at Sankt Gallen is the most correct. We utilized the latter as the basis of
our edition published in 1988, and its second edition in 1996.8 Likewise the
English translation of GDW 1463 we provide in the Appendix below is based on
this edition.
Structurally the pamphlet is a sequence of episodes or anecdotes, with no
narrative coherence or systematic chronology. Only two episodes are dated,
namely no. 24 (1460, St. Bartholomew’s Day) and no. 25 (“the year of our Lord
1462”). The first three episodes are presented as a sequence of events: the ex-
ecution of “old Dracul” (Vlad II Dracul) by “the old governor” (János Hunyadi);

6  See my article “ ‘Geschichte Dracole Waide:’ Un incunable imprimé à Vienne en 1463,”

Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 139 (1981): 209–243, as well as my study L’Histoire du prince
Dracula, 23–44, which utilizes Harmening, Der Anfang von Dracula.
7  As already noted by Jurij Striedter, “Die Erzählung vom walachischen Vojevoden Drakula in
der russischen und deutschen Überlieferung: Professor Dr. Walther Bulst zum 60. Geburtstag,”
Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie 29, no. 2 (1961): 398–427.
8  Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 92–103.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 169

Vlad’s establishment as prince of Wallachia “the same year” and Vladislav II’s
death; and finally, “shortly afterwards,” the expedition to “Siebenbürgen near
Hermannstadt [Sibiu].” The final episode, no. 36, relates Vlad’s arrest by the
same “old governor,” which is a confusion with Matthias Corvinus.
The other anecdotes can be divided into the following two categories. First,
there are those which relay precise information, even if the presentation lacks
chronological or geographical coherence. We may include here the expedi-
tions to Transylvania, the decapitation of Prince Dan, and so on (nos. 3, 4, 5, 6,
9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 35, 36). Second, there are those lacking specificity as to date,
place or persons (nos. 7, 8, 14, 16, 34).
A large number of the episodes (twelve) deal directly with persecution
of the Transylvanian Saxons, and also the Romanians of Făgăraș and Amlaș,
who were Vlad’s rebellious subjects (nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 24, 26, 27).
Seven concern anonymous victims, and partially belong to this same category
(nos. 8, 14, 16, 17, 23, 26, 34). In four of them, ambassadors—from Transylvania
or elsewhere—are the key players (nos. 10, 19, 26, 35). Other protagonists in-
clude Gypsies (nos. 18, 32), Turks (nos. 25, 32), churchmen (nos. 20, 31), nobles
(nos. 7, 29), the poor (no. 33), a laborer (no. 30), the prince’s concubine (no. 22),
and men who had hidden treasure (no. 28).
In exploring this text, what strikes the reader is the absence of any causal-
ity, of narrative logic connecting the component episodes. Their only point in
common is Vlad, who appears driven by a murderous rage against the whole
world, with no reasonable rationale. Why is he attacking the Transylvanian
Saxons? Why is he going after the Turks, or monks, or Gypsies? Of what where
they guilty? All that emerges from a reading of this text is a catalogue of hor-
rors. We are hardly dealing with a genuine history here, but a vulgar repository
of various and sundry atrocious deeds.
Twelve episodes directly deal with persecutions inflicted on the Saxons and
Romanians, and some six or so address this theme indirectly. Obviously this is
the most important group of episodes in the GDW. We may consequently sup-
pose that the majority of these anecdotes derive from this milieu, even though
relations between Vlad and the Saxons and Romanians of Transylvania had
been normalized after 1460. It was in this region, at Sibiu and Brașov, that king
Matthias’ entourage became fully apprised of what Dracula’s policy entailed.
The locals not only guarded the memory of his trail of blood, but wrote of it in
chronicles and correspondence.
Soon after its appearance, the GDW was copied in various other works.
Thomas Ebendorfer, doctor of theology and professor at the University of
Vienna, inserted it in his Cronica regum Romanorum [History of the Kings
170 CHAPTER 6

of the Romans], or Kaiserchronik, completed shortly before his death on

January 12, 1464.9 Ebendorfer placed this account among the events which un-
folded in May and August of 1463. He must have become aware of the German
pamphlet in June-July 1463, exactly as had Pope Pius II, who additionally had a
Latin version at his disposal since January. This is clear from Pius II’s depiction
of Vlad, which we’ve already discussed in Chapter Four.
How could the sovereign pontiff have known of Dracula’s physical ap-
pearance, except through an actual portrait, painted or engraved? The pic-
ture which Nicolas of Modrussa painted (“a fierce and dreadful appearance,”
etc.), in spring of that year, hardly corresponds to the image of a good prince
which the pope needed to fashion. It seems probable, then, that Pius II had
in his hands the brochure printed in June-July in Vienna, with the Wallachian
prince’s engraved portrait.10 And in developing his memoirs, he proceeded
along the lines of Ebendorfer by inserting the Dracula material between his
description of the troubles occurring in Vienna in April 1463, and his account
of the Turkish conquest of Bosnia in June-July of the same year.
A third witness to the diffusion of this account is the German minstrel
Michael Beheim (1416–1474), a partisan of Frederick III, who lived in Wiener
Neustadt between December 12, 1462 and summer 1463, then in Vienna,
and again in Wiener Neustadt during winter 1463–1464, and also in 1465.11
Throughout his vagabond life, Beheim had served as a mercenary in several
wars. Of his many passions, one was fighting the Turks, on which theme he
wrote poems rich in interesting detail, unattested elsewhere. At the end of
1456, he found himself in the service of Count Ulrich of Cilli, a great Hungarian
lord and adversary of János Hunyadi. Following his employer’s death, he next

9   Ebendorfer, ed. Pribram, 200. For relevant excerpts pertaining to Dracula, see ed. Cazacu,
in L’histoire du prince Dracula, 85–88. Cf. also Alphons Lhotsky, Thomas Ebendorfer:
Ein österreichischer Geschichtschreiber, Theologe und Diplomat des 15. Jahrhunderts,
Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Deutsches Institut für Erforschung des
Mittelalters), vol. 15 (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1957).
10  This likewise appears to have been the case with Leonhard Hefft, who, in summarizing
Dracula’s cruelties, adds that his appearance was cruel and austere, and seems to suggest
that a painted image of his face had been circulating world wide. (See our discussion
of the relevant text supra, pp. 86–87). This text dates from 1471, on which see Bogdan,
Vlad Ţepeș și naraţiunile, 31. Hefft added these notes to his German translation of Andreas
of Regensburg’s Cronica pontificum et imperatorum Romanorum, which he produced be-
tween 1471 and 1474 (Cf. Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 24 and note 16).
11  Theodor Georg von Karajan, Michael Beheim’s Buch von den Wienern, 1462–1465, zum er-
sten Mahle nach der Heidelberger und Wiener Handscrift herausgegeben, new ed. (Vienna:
Wilhelm Braumüller, 1867), xxvi–lxxi; Cazacu, op. cit. supra, 104–153.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 171

appears in king Ladislas the Posthumous’s retinue, and finally in that of

Frederick III. He took part in the civil war in which rebellious burghers be-
sieged the emperor in the castle of Vienna (October-December 1462), and even
had a price on his head. After this date, he remained in the emperor’s service for
another two years at his residence in Wiener Neustadt. He was there when the
Hungarian delegation arrived to recover the royal crown, and it’s around then
that he learned of the pamphlet about Dracula’s cruelties, printed in Vienna.
His meeting with the barefoot monk Jacob, whom Dracula had expelled from
Târgoviște, and the stories this fugitive told him about his life in Wallachia,
supplied Beheim with material for a verse poem, intended to be sung, enti-
tled Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei [Concerning a
Despot Named Dracula, Voievod of Wallachia]. In this poem, which the reader
may consult in the Appendix, Beheim faithfully followed the text of the print-
ed pamphlet, adding two anecdotes he acquired from the monk Jacob. One of
these was an eye-witness recollection, and the other describes Dracula’s court
as composed of “new men” who came from all the neighboring regions (which
text we’ve previously discussed12).
Particularly interesting are the final verses of this poem (ll. 961–1070),
which recount Vlad’s presumed treachery towards his suzerain, namely his se-
cret pact with Mehmed II and its discovery by the Hungarian king’s men in
Transylvania. This information could not have derived from the monk Jacob,
but rather the royal court at Buda, envoys from which were present in the envi-
rons of Wiener Neustadt during the summer of 1463. According to this version,
which differs from that communicated in January to Pope Pius II and Venice,
Dracula had committed treason before Mehmed II’s campaign in Wallachia, for
the sole purpose of saving his head and his throne. In summoning Matthias
Corvinus to his rescue, the treacherous Vlad had tried to entice him into an
ambush to deliver him and his advisors to the sultan:

Upon learning / that these Turks—in frightful fashion—/ intended to

attack [Dracula] / with overwhelming force, / he well realized that / op-
position would be futile. / To go against an army of this size / would be
useless. No resistance was possible. / The Turk would take the upper hand
/ and remove him from the throne. / “I shall try, if possible to appeal to
[the Sultan’s] mercy and good will.” / These were the thoughts of this
dreadful man. / At once he sent tidings / to this very heathen. To the ruler
of the Turks / he let it be known: / If the Sultan would offer him mercy,
/ forgiving past actions, / maltreatment, and harm, / that Dracula had

12  See above, pp. 123–124.

172 CHAPTER 6

committed, / then Dracula wished to make amends / and to give restitu-

tion for everything. / [In addition] King Matthias, ruler of Hungary, / and
his most excellent counselors [Dracula] would / summon, lay hold of, /
and place in his hands. / The Turk responded to him that, / if he did this,
he would be forgiven / for past wrongs—thus wiping the slate clean. /
Dracula was to warrant the same, / write, seal, and send [the pledge].
/ The Turk was overjoyed / to have this agreed to, / because he had no
greater enemy [than Matthias)] / in all of Christendom. / Concerning
this matter, Dracula / formulated a plan, / what might be best to do, / so
that things would take place as conceived. / Without losing any time / he
wrote to the Hungarian king / that this monarch, in actions against the
Turk, / should come at lightning speed to his aid, / because in such peril
there was no-one / who might better come to his rescue. / There was no
soul / in the whole world to call on. / Since he [Dracula] was his servant,
his liegeman, / and vassal, / [Matthias] certainly wished neither to leave
his servitor in the lurch / nor to allow the Hungarian crown / to be sev-
ered from association with Wallachia. / The King of Hungary gathered
/ a great force (as we are told) / and set out thence. / He left the city of
Oven [Buda] / with his army, taking the shortest path / to Kronstadt in
Siebenbürgen.13

What follows is the discovery of Vlad’s treason, the voievod’s arrest, and his
imprisonment in the castle at Visegrád.
Beheim’s poem records the definitive version of events as presented by the
Buda court when the Treaty of Wiener Neustadt was concluded in June–July
1463. One can’t help contrasting Beheim’s narrative with that of Nicholas of
Modrussa, who describes in detail the Wallachian prince’s military exploits
during Mehmed II’s campaign in Wallachia, his night attack and the great losses
suffered by the Ottomans, the sultan’s flight, and finally the latter’s retreat at
the news of the approach of the Hungarian army. But not a word on Vlad’s sup-
posed treason, and nothing about the notorious “intercepted” letter which the
papal legate would have been able to read, given his knowledge of Slavonic!
In our opinion, the reason for these differences is that these “vilifying ac-
counts” had not yet been collected. Nicholas of Modrussa had arrived in Buda
at the beginning of 1463, and Beheim was assembling his information a few

13  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, pp. 343–345, ll. 961–1019.
For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald,
ll. 961–1019, pp. 226–228. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed.
and trans. Cazacu, ll. 961–1019, pp. 148/150 [German], 149/151 [French].
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 173

months later. In the interim, Matthias Corvinus’ chancery had elaborated a

novel explanation for the Hungarian sovereign’s about face, and Vlad’s resis-
tance against the Turks was reduced to a simple, cunning stratagem. In this
version intended for the wider Germanophone public, the sole reason given
for Dracula’s arrest is his wrongdoing against the Transylvanian Saxons and his
own subjects, the theme of his treason being initially reserved for the papacy
and Venice. What prompted Matthias Corvinus and his advisors to shift their
position, with the resulting inconsistencies?

The Hungarian Manipulation

Back in 1977, the Romanian historian Ștefan Andreescu offered an interesting

explanation, using a little known episode dating to October-November 1462,
when the king of Hungary was present with his army in southern Transylvania.
Always attentive to Frederick III’s movements, Matthias received the welcome
news of an uprising in Vienna. Exasperated by the brutality and plundering
of unpaid imperial mercenaries, the Viennese had overthrown the mayor
and city senate, and elected as “condottiere of the people” a certain Wolfgang
Holzer. The emperor appeared before the city gates and tried to reason with
the rebellious burghers, promising them he would end the disorders and con-
clude peace with the Austrian barons, notably his brother Albert, archduke
of Austria. Frederick was thus able to enter the turbulent city and install him-
self in the citadel. As peace discussions dragged on, Holzer and the inhabit-
ants announced to the emperor that they no longer considered themselves his
subjects, and decided to lay siege to the citadel. Archduke Albert even rallied
to their side, and tried to take the citadel by storm, using canons and other
war machines. The siege lasted from October 15–16 to December 8, 1462, when
Frederick was liberated by the joint intervention of the king of Bohemia and
an army corps from Styria and Carinthia. Ultimately the rebels had to sign the
Treaty of Korneuburg, on December 2.14

14  Josef Hirsch, “Der Aufstand Wolfgang Holzers in Wien, 1463: Studie von Josef Hirsch,”
Programm der Landes-Oberrealschule zu Prossnitz, am Schlusse des Schuljahres 1901
(Prossnitz: Verlag der Landes-Oberrealschule, 1901); Karl Schalk, Aus der Zeit des öster-
reichischen Faustrechtes 1440–1463: Das Wiener Patriziat um die Zeit des Aufstandes von
1462 und die Gründe dieses Ergebnisses. Quellenkritische Chronik, Abhandlungen zur
Geschichte und Quellenkunde der Stadt Wien, vol. 3 (Vienna: Verlag des Vereines für die
Geschichte der Stadt Wien, 1919); Commentaries of Pius II, Books X–XIII, trans. Gragg,
628–632; for the original Latin, ed. Totaro, 1804–1817.
174 CHAPTER 6

According to Antonio Bonfini, Matthias Corvinus’ official historian, during

the siege the Viennese burghers sent an embassy to the Hungarian king offer-
ing him “most urgently” the imperial office.15 Bonfini next attempts to prove
that Matthias comported himself loyally towards the emperor, refusing the
Viennese burghers’ proposal. Ștefan Andreescu, however, rejects this notion,
seeing a connection between the king’s sudden decision to capture Vlad and
stop the campaign against the Turks, and the Viennese burghers’ proposal. This
invitation came just at the right time for Matthias, who was seeking a pretext
to extricate himself from a hazardous enterprise, with poor prospects for suc-
cess. He assuredly realized that even were he to reinstall Vlad in Wallachia, the
Turks would react violently, as they had done throughout the entire fifteenth
and sixteenth century. For over fifty years, no Wallachian prince had succeeded
in maintaining himself on the throne against the will of the Ottomans, as the
anarchy of the 1420s clearly proved. The principal outcome of the incessant
hostilities between Turks and Hungarians on the lower Danube—struggling
over domination of Wallachia—was a succession of Wallachian princes with
reigns lasting but a year, or even less.
The matter of Vlad Dracula was quickly forgotten, however, because other
dangers were looming on the horizon. Mehmed II occupied Bosnia and decap-
itated its last king, Stephen Tomašević. Shortly thereafter, Matthias Corvinus
went on campaign and reconquered Bosnia, only to lose it again a year later. In
the meanwhile, Venice in turn launched a war with the Ottomans (1463–1479),
and Pius II died on August 15, 1464, after having enjoined the cardinals to pur-
sue the crusade and send 40,000 ducats to the king of Hungary. The latter, who
was finally crowned on March 29, received the funds, but the crusading plans
were abandoned the following year.16
During the Diet held at Buda in March 1467, Matthias Corvinus succeeded
in securing possession of the Transylvanian fiefs of Amlaș, Făgărăș, and Rodna.
Thus he would be able to cede them to Wallachian and Moldavian voievods
taking refuge in Transylvania, awaiting recovery of their thrones. This measure
was intended not only to increase fiscal revenues, but to prepare for Vlad’s
eventual liberation and possible installation near the Wallachian frontier. This
and other grievances, however, triggered a revolt by the Transylvanian Saxons,
which the Hungarian nobles and Szeklers joined. Radu the Handsome, who

15  Bonfini, ed. Fógel, vol. 4, part 1, 72; Ștefan Andreescu, “En marge des rapports de Vlad
Ţepeș avec la Hongrie,” Revue roumaine d’histoire 16, no. 3 (1977): 507–515.
16  Giuseppe Valentini, “La sospensione della crociata nei primi anni di Paolo II (1464–1468)
(dai documenti d’archivio di Venezia),” Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 14 (1976): 71–101.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 175

felt himself directly targeted, likewise replied with protectionist measures

which once again harmed the Saxon commercial interests in Wallachia.17
Such, then, was the wider context in which Matthias Corvinus almost com-
pletely terminated war against the Turks. From 1464–1465, Turko-Hungarian
hostilities were limited to frontier skirmishes. Paralleling this was a situation
of chronic insecurity on the Austrian border. Nonetheless, despite official em-
bassies dispatched by Mehmed II in 1465 and 1468, Matthias Corvinus refused
to conclude a definitive peace. Thus, during discussions with the Turkish em-
bassy which arrived in Buda in 1468, the king:

… didn’t receive the members of the embassy except in the presence of

his captive Dracula, the implacable enemy of the Turks, who inspired in
them a terrible fear. [The Turkish envoys], on seeing the latter, who had
inflicted on them innumerable and frightful misfortunes and who
had many times vanquished them and forced them to flee, regarded him
with distrust, and invited [the king] once again to conclude an armistice.18

At length the two parties negotiated a de facto truce. Mehmed II could now
devote himself to matters in Karaman, while Matthias Corvinus could wage
war on Bohemia, whose crown he coveted. After king George Podiebrad died
in March 1471, a long military confrontation unfolded with the Polish king
Casimir IV, whose son Vladislav had succeeded in being elected king of
Bohemia.
Faced with these complex developments, Hungary’s attention shifted away
from the lower Danube area, where Venice was again seeking allies in the war
it had been waging with the Turks since 1463. At the same time, an alliance
between Stephen the Great of Moldavia and Uzun Hassan, sultan of the Aq
Qoyunlu confederation, threatened Ottoman interests. In November 1473,
Stephen succeeded in overthrowing Radu the Handsome and replacing him
with a loyal prince. Following this, for over a year, Wallachia’s leadership oscil-
lated from princes allied to Stephen, to vassals of the Ottomans, and vice versa.
Finally, in late 1474, Mehmed II settled the problem by dispatching troops to
Moldavia, to punish the rebellious voievod who refused to pay tribute.
This was the moment Matthias Corvinus chose to return Vlad to center
stage. The king had set aside his 1467 plan to install the Wallachian prince in

17  Papacostea, “Începuturile politicii comerciale a Ţării Românești și Moldovei (secolele

XIV–XVI),” 190–191.
18  Bonfini, ed. Fógel, vol. 4, part 1, 25; Andreescu, “En marge des rapports de Vlad Ţepeș avec
la Hongrie,” 512–513.
176 CHAPTER 6

Amlaș and Făgărăș, which formerly were voivodal fiefs. This owing to the re-
volt of the Saxons, who were unwilling to renounce these rich provinces and
who wished to preserve peace on the Wallachian frontier. It’s hardly surprising,
thus, that in 1469 the king once again accorded them these fiefs, which grant he
confirmed three years later.19
At the beginning of 1475, the situation was worrisome for the Christian
camp, despite the crushing victory which the Moldavian voievod had just
scored over Süleyman Pasha, at Vaslui. Negotiations at Breslau among King
Matthias, Vladislav of Bohemia, and Casimir of Poland had culminated, on
November 19, 1474, with the conclusion of a three year armistice. The Diet at
Prague (February 12, 1475) resolved that the crown of Bohemia would return to
Vladislas Jagiello, thus ending a war which had raged for seven years.20

Dracula’s Liberation

At this point, finally, Matthias intended to concentrate on the problem of the

Ottomans. He summoned the Hungarian Diet to meet in Buda on April 24, and
taxed every household one gold florin to help finance the struggle against the
Turks, for which he also asked subsidies from Pope Sixtus IV and Venice.21
On his side, Mehmed II took the initiative and in June conquered the Italian
colonies in the Crimea, notably Caffa, Tana, and Theodoro-Mangup, a prin-
cipality allied with Moldavia. His conquests in this region also included the
Khanate of Crimea, which became an Ottoman vassal and a terribly effective
instrument of Ottoman policy in Eastern Europe. Moldavia was surrounded
and, on July 12, 1475, Stephen the Great and Matthias Corvinus formed an al-
liance directed against the Turks. The Moldavian prince swore fealty to the
Hungarian crown and agreed to fight against all its enemies, with the excep-
tion of the king of Poland.22
Stephen also insisted that the king restore full liberty to Dracula, who had
been languishing in idleness in Pest, opposite Buda, with his wife and sons—
Vlad, Mihnea, and a third whose name is unknown (perhaps Mircea). In any

19  Gündisch, ed., Urkundenbuch, vol. 6, no. 3705, pp. 391–393; no. 3757, pp. 427–428; no. 3768,
pp. 435–436; no. 3927, pp. 532–533.
20  Fessler and Klein, Geschichte von Ungarn, vol. 3, 109–110; Nehring, Matthias Corvinus,
Kaiser Friedrich III. und das Reich, 71–73.
21  Fessler and Klein, op. cit. supra, 113; Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), vol. 2,
320–321.
22  Bogdan, ed., Documentele lui Ștefan cel Mare, no. CXLVI, pp. 331–333, 334–336.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 177

event, Dracula’s imprisonment at Visegrád had been of short duration, since

his name was never entered in the prisoners’ list of this fortress, which func-
tioned as a royal residence before Buda.23 Dracula in fact enjoyed the status
of a political prisoner, which allowed him to live with his family, but without
leaving the city.
From this period 1463–1475, we are apprised of only two episodes in Dracula’s
life. The first dates from the time of his imprisonment, and is recorded by two
different sources, based on accounts from Matthias Corvinus’ advisors. Let us
consider first Gabriele Rangoni’s version. He was the bishop of Eger, and ac-
companied Vlad in the Serbian campaign of 1476:

However I cannot silently pass over the cruelty of Dracula, who is known
throughout the whole world. […] The Hungarian nobles say that when he
was the prince of Wallachia, he had killed perhaps a hundred thousand
men with the stake and other terrible tortures. For this, the king kept him
for numerous years in a tightly-guarded prison, but even there he did not
forget his ferocity, because he would trap mice, cut them into pieces, and
stick them on bits of wood as he had done with the men he had impaled.24

When he was in Buda in 1482–1483, the Russian ambassador Fyodor Kuritsyn

also heard this story. He further claims that Vlad did the same things with birds
which he bought from the market.25
The second known episode in Dracula’s life during the years 1463–1475 ap-
pears only in Kuritsyn:

When the king threw him in prison, he had him brought to Buda and
gave him a house in Pest, across from Buda. And before Dracula was
[brought to reside with] the king, it happened that a criminal sought ref-
uge in his house. Those pursuing him entered in turn, began to search
for him and [then] found him. Dracula jumped from the house, drew his
sword, and cut off the head of the sergeant who had taken the criminal,
and then freed the latter. The others fled and ran to tell the mayor what
had happened. And the mayor and his aldermen proceeded to the king to

23  Florescu and McNally, Dracula: A Biography, 112.

24  Iorga, “Lucruri nouă despre Vlad Ţepeș,” 161.
25  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, Appendix, p. 362, Episode 16. For the original Russian with
facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 16, pp. 204 [Russian]/205
[French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula (1994), Episode, Episode
16, p. 206.
178 CHAPTER 6

lodge a complaint against Dracula. The king sent [someone] to Dracula’s

house to question him, [asking]: “Why have you committed this crime?”
But Dracula responded in this way: “I have done nothing wrong, but he
has killed himself. All those who break into the house of a great sover-
eign as thieves shall likewise perish. If the mayor had come to me and
had explained [the affair], and if I had found the criminal in my house, I
would have delivered him myself or I would have spared him of his life.”
When this was told to the king, he burst into laughter and marveled at
[Dracula’s] courage.26

This episode took place before July 18, 1475, since on that date the Duke of
Ferrara’s envoy to Buda learned that King Matthias had restored Dracula to his
former dignity in Wallachia, making him again the voievod and hoping that
his exploits against the Turks would be as brilliant as those he’d heretofore
accomplished. The king gave him soldiers and money, and sent agents to
Transylvania to prepare the prince’s reception.27 After a stop in Moldavia, the
prince set up headquarters in northwest Transylvania, awaiting completion of
the house he was having built in Sibiu.28 Matthias Corvinus had given him a
subvention of 200 gold florins, thanks to which he was able to finish the house,
where his son Mihnea would also be living in 1510.
Vlad was unable to recover his throne in 1475, however, because the new
prince of Wallachia, Basarab III, had just concluded peace with Matthias and
had good relations with the Saxons. At the same time, Basarab was also pay-
ing tribute to the Turks.29 This explains why Dracula accomplished his first
military exploits, as a free man, in the course of Matthias Corvinus’ winter

26  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 362, Episode 17. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 17,
pp. 206 [Russian]/207 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula
(1994), Episode, Episode 17, p. 206.
27  M HH AE, vol. 4 [B], no. 190, pp. 272–273; Veress, ed., Acta et epistolae, vol. 1, no. 13, pp. 14–15.
28  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. CXLVI, pp. 84–85.
29  See fig. 21 for a votive portrait of Basarab III in Hurezi Monastery, late seventeenth cen-
tury. On January 16, 1476, the voievod of Transylvania wrote to the Brașov burghers: “Our
most Serene Lord the King has a treaty [unionem] with Basarab, Voievod of Wallachia,
and you in turn must keep this peace. If you want to acquire your provisions convenient-
ly, then you must respect the peace” (Ibid., no. CXLIX, pp. 86–87, with quote on p. 87).
On Basarab’s relations with the Ottomans in 1476, see most recently Liviu Cîmpeanu,
“Basarab Laiotǎ, domn al Țǎrii Românești: Preliminarii la o monografie [Basarab Laiotă,
lord of Wallachia: preliminary remarks for a biography],” Studii și Materiale de Istorie
Medie 32 (2014): 145–172.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 179

campaign against Sabac, a fortress held by the Turks, who were threatening
Belgrade (January-February 1476). Vlad took the cities of Srebrenica and Kušlat
in Bosnia, at times going so far as to disguise his soldiers as Turks to facilitate
surprise assaults in broad daylight. At length, after the conquest of Zvornik, he
unleashed his rage:

Breaking up the bodies of the captured Turks limb by limb with his own
hands, he affixed them on stakes, to no purpose [i.e., they were already
dead], saying: “When the Turks come and see these, they will flee from us
in terror.” He is the one who made forests of impaled people.30

When the campaign was over, Vlad returned to Sibiu, to the great displeasure
of Basarab III, the Wallachian voievod and brother of Vladislav II. It was of
course ominous for him that Dracula’s partisans were plotting for the return
of their prince. Matthias Corvinus, at this point, was not responding to Turkish
raids in Hungary and Croatia, and seemed uninterested in Ottoman affairs.
Rather, he was absorbed in diplomatic maneuvers to isolate and neutralize
Frederick III, who was preparing the marriage of his son Maximilian and Mary,
heiress of the duchy of Burgundy.

“But He Was Pierced by Many Lances …”

Mehmed II sought revenge following the defeat his armies suffered in January
1475, in Moldavia. The following summer, owing to an epidemic of plague, he
took no action. At length he chose the spring of 1476 to deploy a large scale
action. In May, at the head of a powerful army, the sultan set forth on cam-
paign against Moldavia. It was planned as a coordinated action, along with
the Crimean Tatars and Basarab III’s Wallachians. Moldavia was isolated,
on the front line. Venice ordered its ambassador in Buda to do everything pos-
sible to compel the Hungarian king to assist Stephen the Great. But in vain.
Once again Matthias was more absorbed in his negotiations with Frederick III,
and his marriage with Beatrice of Aragon (fig. 19).

30  Iorga, “Lucruri nouă despre Vlad Ţepeș,” 160–161 (“Nam, manibus suis membratim raptos
Turcos dividens, ad palos frustra figebat, inquiens: ‘Cum hec Turci venientes viderint, ter-
riti nobis terga dabunt et fugient.’ Hic est ille qui silvas impalatorum hominum fecit”).
Also see Ștefan Andreescu, “L’Action de Vlad Ţepeș dans le sud-est de l’Europe en 1476,”
Revue des études sud-est européennes 15, no. 2 (1977): 259–272.
180 CHAPTER 6

The only response came from Transylvania. On the orders of voievod

Stephen Báthory and Dracula, an army of 30,000 men was assembled. However,
it arrived too late to prevent Moldavia’s defeat on July 26, 1476, at Valea Albă
(Războieni). Mehmed II and his Wallachian ally Basarab III crushed Stephen
and his 10,000 men. The sultan then besieged several Moldavian fortresses, but
unsuccessfully, since starvation and plague struck the Ottoman army, which
was forced to retreat. On August 15, 1476, the Transylvanian forces successfully
attacked the Ottoman rear, somewhere near a river or stream (perhaps the
Siret, or the Danube?). The Austrian chronicler Jakob Unrest attributed this vic-
tory to “Trakhel Weyda.”31 Crowned now in victory, Dracula could hardly imag-
ine that his days were numbered. Settled now at Brașov, on October 7, 1476 he
guaranteed the Saxon burghers complete freedom of trade in Wallachia, and
agreed to suppress the staple right in Wallachian cities holding that privilege.32
A few days later, Vlad and Stephen Bathory marched on Târgoviște, which they
occupied on November 8. Vlad’s capital, Bucharest, fell only a week later. On
December 4, Matthias Corvinus in Buda could announce the victory of “his
captains,” Dracula and Stephen Bathory.33
Dracula’s third reign was brief, and ended tragically. Around Christmas 1476,
Basarab III unexpectedly returned, with help from the Danubian Turkish beys.
In the ensuing battle, Dracula was “cut to pieces” with 4,000 men, according to
the contemporary Leonardo Botta, the Duke of Milan’s envoy to Venice. Of the
two hundred men whom Stephen had left him, only ten escaped.
For Jakob Unrest and the Polish historian Jan Długosz, both of whom were
contemporary with these events, Dracula was betrayed by one of his own
trusted men, a Turk who was bribed by Mehmed II. When the battle com-
menced, he crept up on Dracula from behind and cut off his head, with a single
mighty blow of his sword. With Dracula dead, his men lost courage and were
overwhelmed by their adversaries.34

31  Unrest, ed. Grossmann, 64. Also see Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time, 349; the
commemorative volume Războieni, cinci sute de ani de la campania din 1476: Monografie și
culegere de studii [Razboieni, five hundred years after the 1476 campaign: Monograph and
collection of studies], eds. Manole Neagoe et al. (Bucharest: Direcţia Generală a Arhivelor
Statului din Republica Socialistă România, 1977); and Andreescu, “L’Action de Vlad Ţepeș,”
267–269.
32  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare, no. LXXIV, pp. 95–97. Already on September 6, king
Matthias commanded the Saxons to help Vlad recover his throne (Documente, vol. 15,
pt. 1, no. CLXV, p. 94).
33  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare, no. LXXV, pp. 97–98; Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1,
no. CLXVII, p. 95; Iorga, ed., Acte și fragmente, vol. 3, pp. 58–59.
34  Unrest, ed. Grossmann, 68; Długosz, ed. Przedziecki, vol. 5, 651.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 181

A few years later, in Buda, the Russian ambassador Fyodor Kuritsyn was
apprised of a different version of Vlad’s end:

Dracula’s end came about as follows. While he reigned in the country of

Muntenia, the Turks attacked his land and began to conquer it. Dracula
attacked them and put them to flight. His army killed them without
mercy, and in joy Dracula mounted a hill in order to better see how his
people were massacring the Turks. He distanced himself in this way from
his army and his comrades mistook him for a Turk, and one of them
struck him with a sword. However, seeing himself attacked by his own,
[Dracula] immediately slew with his sword five of them who wished to
fight him. However he was pierced through by many lances, and thus he
was killed.35

Whichever version we choose to accept, Vlad’s head—or rather, his scalp (i.e.,
the facial skin and hair)—was embalmed and stuffed with cotton, following a
customary Turkish method. It was then brought to Mehmed II, who immedi-
ately had it inspected by those in his circle who knew the voievod from past
dealings. Its authenticity established, the sultan probably ordered the scalp to
be displayed on the wall of the imperial palace. Another possibility is that it was
sent as a gift to some foreign potentate, after having been paraded about all the
cities of the empire, on the end of a lance. In any case this is how Mehmed II
proceeded in 1453, with the head of the last emperor of Constantinople,
Constantine XI Palaiologos. Here he was following the example of his father,
Murad II, who did the same with the head of Vladislav, king of Poland and
Hungary, following the battle of Varna in 1444.36

35  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 363, Episode 18. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 18,
pp. 208 [Russian]/209 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula
(1994), Episode 18, p. 209. At that moment, Mehmed II was organizing a new campaign
against Moldavia, in alliance with the Crimean Tatars, and against Vlad. On this see Nagy
Pienaru, “Un document otoman recunoscut din 1476” [An unknown Ottoman document
from 1476], Revista Istorică 13, nos. 1–2 (2002): 229–241.
36  Matei Cazacu, “La ‘Mort infâme:’ Décapitation et exposition des têtes à Istanbul, XVe–
XIXe siècles,” in Les Ottomans et la mort: Permanences et mutations, ed. Gilles Veinstein,
The Ottoman Empire and its heritage, vol. 9 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 245–289. Reprinted
in Cazacu, Au carrefour des Empires et des mers, 165–201. Citation reference here is to the
1996 publication.
182 CHAPTER 6

A Face Covered With a Silk Cloth

No surviving tomb of Vlad Dracula has been securely identified. According

to tradition, he was buried in the monastery of Snagov, which is located on
an island, right in the middle of a lake, some twenty-five kilometers north of
Bucharest (fig. 22). The monastery church actually dates to the beginning
of the sixteenth century. The cells and other buildings have disappeared, and
only a few remains of the walls remind us that a larger monastic complex once
existed here, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. According to the official
Wallachian chronicle, Vlad was purported to have reconstructed the monas-
tery. A series of restoration projects in the twentieth century has helped to
recover its traditional appearance. The sixteenth century frescoes contain por-
traits of the princes dating to 1550–1560, and are well preserved. But there is
nothing of Vlad or his descendants.
In the nineteenth century, however, monks would show visitors a tombstone
embedded in the pavement of the church, the inscription on which was com-
pletely effaced. The brothers added that it was placed there so that it would
be trodden on by the celebrants during services. The deceased’s sinful soul
would thus obtain some alleviation from the eternal punishments to which it
was condemned. This stone is currently located opposite the royal doors of the
iconstasis, before the main altar.
The monks’ traditional story was recorded in 1861. And no documents or
inscriptions, either before or after this date, indicate the existence of another
grave for Dracula. However, as with all traditions, this one contains a mixture of
truth and falsehood. In 1933, archaeological excavations were carried out in the
church of Snagov, and when the tomb was opened, it was found to be empty—
except for a few bones of prehistoric animals. The absence of any human
remains intrigued the archeologists, who decided to dig several trenches
in the ground. Three meters down, they found an intact tomb, situated on
the central axis of the nave. The aforementioned plaque (i.e., the tombstone
without an inscription, now positioned before the royal doors) was originally
perfectly positioned over this tomb, which was also built of stone. At length,
one fine sunny summer afternoon, the archaeologist Dinu V. Rosetti and the
historian George D. Florescu opened the tomb, and, to their surprise, found
the deceased perfectly preserved in a coffin, which was covered with a purple
fabric with golden thread embroidery. The fading daylight coming through the
open church door hit the tomb directly, and Rosetti and Florescu could see that
the coffin contained the body of a man, dressed in a western style garment of
purple or green velvet, with large silver gilt buttons. Around his waist was a
belt made of solid silver lozenges. His face was covered with a silk fabric and
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 183

a woman’s ring was attached to one sleeve. A gold tournament crown, deco-
rated with ceramic beads, alternating with claws of gold, each holding a tur-
quoise, rested near the hands of the deceased. On contact with air, however,
the body decomposed within a few minutes, before the archeologists were able
to see its face or take a photo.
Rosetti and his colleague Florescu were convinced that this was the actual
tomb of Vlad the Impaler. That the deceased still had a head, however, was
problematic since our sources relate that Vlad’s head was cut off and brought to
Constantinople. Some therefore conjecture that this must have been the tomb
of Dracula’s father, Vlad II Dracul, but there is no evidence. In our opinion, this
debate turns on false assumptions. The procedure the Turks followed is known,
and it did not involve fully decapitating the head. Rather, they simply removed
the facial skin and hair, leaving the skull attached to the body for burial. A pos-
sible reason behind this is the religious prohibition against inserting a hand
into the mouth of the deceased—which in this case, would be for transporting
and handling the decapitated head. As evidence for this custom, one of the
oldest known examples is that of the Austrian baron Herbord von Auersperg,
who was killed in combat with the Turks in 1575. When his widow asked for his
body and head for burial, Ferhad Pasha responded to her as follows:

The head will also be given to you [i.e., along with, or implicitly attached
to the body]. But first it is necessary detach the skin and stuff it, which I’ll
use as a trophy in my triumphal entry to Constantinople.37

Another case dates from the end of the eighteenth century. On March 1, 1799,
the Wallachian prince, Constantin Hangerliu, was decapitated at Bucharest
and his head was brought to Istanbul. His body was buried in a church, and
exhumed in 1821 to provide burial space for another deceased prince. On this

37  
Stephen Gerlachs deß Aeltern Tage-Buch, Der von zween Glorwürdigsten Römischen
Käysern, Maximiliano und Rudolpho, Beyderseits den Andern dieses Nahmens, höchst-
seeligster Gedächtnüß, An die Ottomannische Pforte zu Constantinopel Abgefertigten,
Und durch den wohlgebohrnen Herrn Hn. David Ungnad … Mit würcklicher Erhalt- und
Verlängerung deß Friedens, zwischen dem Ottomanischen und Römischen Käyserthum …
glücklichst-vollbrachter Gesandtschafft: Aus denen Gerlachischen … eygenhändig auffge-
setzten und nachgelassenen Schrifften, Herfür gegeben durch Seinen Enckel M. Samuelem
Gerlachium … (Frankfurt am Main: In Verlegung Johann-David Zunners, 1674), 132–133;
Carl Göllner, Turcica, vol. 3, Die Türkenfrage in der öffentlichen Meinung Europas im 16.
Jahrhundert, Bibliotheca bibliographica Aureliana, vol. 70 (Bucharest: Editura Academiei
Republicii Socialiste România 1978), 158, 328; Cazacu, “La ‘Mort infâme,’ ” 256.
184 CHAPTER 6

occasion, the Prussian consul was able to see the heads of Constantin Hangerliu
and Scarlat Ghica, who had died in 1766:

The bones of these two hospodars [princes] have been put in a sack
of green canvas, to make a place for their successor. These we’ve been
shown. The head of Prince Ghica, which had been washed, like all the
other bones, was light brown; that of Prince Hangerliu was dark brown
and still covered with blood from a blow through which his assassin, a
Turk, broke his skull.38

Clearly then corpses were buried with skulls attached, and only the facial skin
and hair had been removed for exposition. Such is the testimony of many con-
temporaries from Bucharest to Istanbul. But the Prussian consul could hardly
distinguish a skull on which the Turks had “operated,” from one which had
been buried intact. The skull of Prince Ghica—who died in his bed, and whose
body was properly treated for burial—had lost its skin through natural decom-
position, and simply appeared cleaner to the consul.
As should be evident, the skeleton discovered at Snagov could well have
been that of Vlad the Impaler, who would have been buried with his flayed
skull attached, with a silk fabric covering his mutilated face. Unfortunately,
the objects uncovered in the tomb have all disappeared in the course of the
Museum of the Municipality of Bucharest’s various changes of location.39
Let us note that no other church in Wallachia has thus far claimed the
honor of sheltering Dracula’s remains. However, in 2002 the Romanian histo-
rian Constantin Rezachevici hypothesized that Vlad’s tomb might be located
in one of his foundations, namely the monastery church of Comana, south of
Bucharest. This thesis is not without interest. Comana is located near the route
the Turks used, traveling back and forth from Giurgiu to Bucharest, and it’s
probably in this area that the prince’s final battle took place. Archaeological
excavations conducted at Comana have unearthed a fifteenth century church,
but no tomb or inscription allowing us to believe that Dracula was buried there.
The same is true for the church at Târgșor, Dracula’s other known foundation.40

38  Cazacu, op. cit. supra, 268–272.

39  Dinu V. Rosetti, Săpăturile arheologice de la Snagov [Archaeological excavations at
Snagov] (Bucharest: Muzeul Municipiului, 1935), 44–45, and also his “Unde este mor-
mântul teribilului domnitor? [Where is the tomb of the terrible prince?],” a lecture given
October 12, 1966 in the Museum of the Municipality of Bucharest, and printed in Tribuna
României [Bucharest], February 1, 1973, pp. 4–5.
40  Rezachevici, Cronologia critică a domnilor, vol. 1, 118.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 185

In conclusion, while awaiting possible future discoveries, we can accept for

now that the prince’s place of burial was probably at Snagov.

Vlad and Mihnea: The Children of “The Devil”

When Dracula died he was no more than forty-seven, leaving behind a widow
and three sons. The eldest was called Mihnea, a name probably derived from
Mihail (Michael). Born well before 1462, his mother is unknown, but she and
Dracula were never married. Sometime between 1456 and 1458, Dracula sent
Mihnea as a hostage to Mehmed II. After Dracula was deposed in 1462, Mihnea
succeeded in fleeing from Istanbul and then took refuge in Hungary, where he
was still to be found in 1482–1483, in the retinue of king Matthias Corvinus.
The name of Dracula’s second son, and first legitimate child, is unknown.
Customarily he would have been called Mircea, after his paternal great-grandfa-
ther and uncle. Recent research identifies his mother as an illegitimate daugh-
ter of János Hunyadi, who evidently died by 1472–1473. “Mircea,” or whatever
he was named, lived on to 1482–1483, dying at the age of eighteen or nineteen
in the service of János Filipecz, the Catholic bishop of Oradea (Nagyvárad),
chancellor of the realm, and a great patron.
Dracula’s second legitimate son bore the name of his father and pater-
nal grandfather, i.e., Vlad. Recent research identifies his mother as Justina
Szilágyi de Horogszog, a cousin of Matthias Corvinus. Corvinus arranged the
marriage between Dracula and Justina in 1475, in conjunction with his resto-
ration of Dracula to his former dignity in Wallachia, and plans for renewed
military action against the Ottomans. In 1482, Vlad (i.e., the son of Dracula
and Justina) was also living in the court at Buda, a member of the king’s reti-
nue. It thus would appear that Dracula’s two legitimate sons led the same
sort of life in Hungary as did their grandfather, Vlad Dracul, at Sigismund of
Luxembourg’s court. That is to say, they presumably learned the profession of
arms from Matthias Corvinus’ captains, and participated in campaigns against
Frederick III in Austria, culminating in the occupation of Vienna in 1485, and
of Wiener Neustadt two years later. Their destinies changed in 1490, how-
ever, with the death of Matthias, and Vladislav II Jagiello’s accession to the
Hungarian throne.41

41  On the thorny question of Dracula’s marriages, see most recently Mihai Florin Hasan,
“Aspecte ale relaţiilor matrimoniale dinastice munteano-maghiare din secolele XIV–XV
[Aspects of the Hungarian-Wallachian matrimonial relations of the foureenth and fif-
teenth centuries],” Rivista Bistriţei 27 (2013): 151–159. Vlad’s mother Justina lived until 1497,
186 CHAPTER 6

Of these two sons of Dracula, Vlad was the first to make a name for him-
self. This was in 1495, following the death of the Wallachian prince Vlad IV
the Monk, the illegitimate son of Vlad Dracul, and thus Dracula’s half-brother.
With the help of Stephen of Moldavia, and at the request of Matthias Corvinus,
Vlad IV ascended the throne of Wallachia in 1482. For the previous twenty-
seven years, he lived exiled in Transylvania and elsewhere, incessantly plot-
ting against Dracula and his successors. Formerly a monk, named Pahomie
(Pacomius) after one of the founders of eastern monasticism, Vlad IV man-
aged the great feat of reigning an uninterrupted thirteen years, and dying in his
bed in September 1495. A key reason for this political longevity was the series
of truces concluded between Matthias Corvinus and the Ottoman sul-
tan Bayezid II, who was more concerned about Moldavia, and then Venice.
Internally, Vlad IV had succeeded in maintaining an equilibrium among the
different factions of nobility. He did so by associating the latter with govern-
ment, notably the powerful Craiovești boyar clan—which held many estates in
Oltenia—, and other clans in the center of the country.
In 1495 Dracula’s sons Vlad and Mihnea must have been living in Sibiu,
where, as we’ve seen, their father had built a house around 1474–1475. King
Vladislav later established Vlad in southern Transylvania to protect that area
from possible Ottoman incursions. On the death of the Wallachian voievod,
he assembled an army and crossed the Carpathians, but was repelled by
Vlad IV’s son and successor, Radu IV the Great (1495–1508). Apprised of these
maneuvers, the Hungarian king sent a letter to Vlad, son of Dracula, reproach-
ing him for his campaign in Wallachia, and ordering him to proceed imme-
diately to the Banat. This letter was dated November 1, 1495.42 Cured of his
dreams of grandeur, he died soon thereafter, and the paternal heritage de-
volved solely to Mihnea and his descendants.
It’s interesting to note that Vlad—doubtless married to a Hungarian noble-
woman, and very probably a Transylvanian—had descendants which can
be traced to the seventeenth century. His son, Ludovicus [Louis] Drakulya
de Sintești, is mentioned in 1511. On January 20, 1534, Ferdinand of Habsburg
(1526–1564), king of Hungary and brother of Charles V, conferred a patent of
nobility on Louis’ two sons, Vlad [Ladislaus] and John Drakulya de Sintești,
who were living in the Banat. Their coat of arms consisted of a red background,
with three silver horizontally placed wolf teeth, and a curved sword surmount-
ing it all. This constitutes, clearly, the confirmation of an older privilege, and

and was married twice after Vlad Dracula’s death—to Paul Suki (1479), and then John
Erdélyi of Somkerék (ca. 1481–1497). Ibid., 157–158.
42  
Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. CCLXIII, pp. 144–145.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 187

it’s important to note that the coat of arms is practically identical to that of
the Báthory family, famous throughout Hungary and Poland in the fifteenth
through seventeenth century.
Vlad [Ladislaus] Dracula was part of Gáspár Horváth de Vingárt’s entourage.
The latter was a great Hungarian lord, of Croatian origin. After the Banat was
occupied by the Turks, Vlad Dracula obtained villages in the Szekler country
of Transylvania, in recognition of services he had rendered to his lord and the
king of Hungary. A Latin document of 1554 attests that he and his wife Anna
owned “Band in Sede Maros” [i.e., Bandu, in the seat of Sicule de Mureș], on
which grounds Vlad assumed the title “de Band.” He and Anna had one son,
John Dracula de Band, who was the last known descendant in the male line of
the family. Through the female line, the Dracula name is perpetuated at least
down to the eighteenth century, conjoined with those of allied families like
the Géczi and Papp. We’ll explore this genealogy in greater detail later on. But
it’s particularly interesting in that Vlad’s Transylvanian descendants ended up
settling in the Szekler area to the east, more precisely in the county of Doboka.
And one of its dependencies was Borgo (Prundul Bârgăului), which Bram
Stoker made famous by situating there the castle of his Szekler Count Dracula,
a reincarnation of the fifteenth century Wallachian prince.43
Let’s consider, finally, Vlad’s descendants who lived in foreign countries,
beginning with the Russian monk Vasian, surnamed “Dracula,” who in 1538
copied a chronicle of 1512. His ancestry isn’t fully clear. Perhaps he was the
son of Mircea, another of Vlad Dracula’s bastards, and protégé of Stephen
the Great, who tried to establish him in Wallachia in 1481. But probably he was
part of that closed circle of Moldavian families who emigrated to Russia in
the late fifteenth century, and from whom emerged Russian family names like
Volokishin, Volochov, and above all, Rachmaninov.44
The Wallachian branch of the Dracula genealogy continues for two centuries
through the descendants of his eldest son, Mihnea. In 1494, we find Mihnea plot-
ting in Transylvania, sending emissaries bearing letters to Wallachian boyars

43  Pavel Binder, “Une famille noble roumaine de Transylvanie: Les Drakulya de Sintești,”
Revue roumaine d’histoire 27, no. 4 (1988): 301–314. Quotation from the 1554 document
is on p. 306. Binder identified Vlad (Ladislaus)’s wife Anna as a member of the Wass de
Czege family, but this is disputed by András W. Kovács, who argues that she belonged
to the Gyulay family (The History of the Wass de Czege Family, trans. by Ágnes Baricz
[Hamburg: Edmund Siemers-Stiftung, 2002], 31).
44  Georghe Bezviconi, Contribuţii la istoria relaţiilor româno-ruse [Contributions to the his-
tory of Romanian-Russian relations], Colecţia Istorie Tritonic (Bucharest: Tritonic, 1962),
44; Giraudo, Drakula, 121–122; Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 79–80.
188 CHAPTER 6

who might be supportive. In June, one of these envoys, who himself claimed to
be a son of the prince, was captured and had his nose cut off (cisus est nasus),
a relatively light punishment for a pretender to the throne.45 In principle, this
mutilation should have disqualified him from ruling, since a candidate for the
throne was expected to be fully sound physically, with no bodily defect. But in
fact there were several ways of “cutting off the nose.” The least serious was tran-
secting the septum, as was done, according to our sources, to Polish horses. The
victim could thus heal and recover his former appearance. Such was the case
with Nicolae Milescu, a seventeenth century Moldavian nobleman, who sum-
moned a German physician for treatment. A more radical operation involved
a genuine mutilation which disfigured the victim for life, who henceforth was
derisively called “snub-nosed” (in Romanian, cârn). Even this, however, did not
stop a pretender determined to take the throne, as was the case in Wallachia in
1592, and again in 1654 and 1678, and likewise in Moldavia in 1659.
After his brother Vlad left for the Banat, Mihnea remained the sole claimant
to the Wallachian throne in the line of Vlad the Impaler. His activities in the
Saxon area where he lived were so disturbing to the new Wallachian prince,
his cousin Radu the Great, that the Hungarian authorities reacted vigorously,
anxious to maintain calm and order on the frontier. In 1497, an envoy of the
Hungarian king to Radu’s court forbade the Saxons of Sibiu from supporting
voievod Mihnea, or from allowing him to enter into Wallachia.46 And, at the
same time, Radu explained to the Brașov burghers that he had been compelled
to close the access roads to Wallachia:

… in order to preserve us against our enemy Mihnea, who has recently

come amongst us. In consequence, as long as he remains in Transylvania,
we cannot open the roads. I know that people will suffer from these in-
conveniences, but we cannot protect ourselves if these roads remain
open. Therefore send an emissary to His Majesty the king asking him to
intervene against our enemy so that he will no longer be able to remain
either in Transylvania or in any other place on the border, so that we
may reopen the roads … And [ask] that your lordship may inform us on
the whereabouts of this enemy: Is he in Timișoara or has he returned to
Buda? And then we will reopen the roads.47

45  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare, no. CCXCIV, p. 342.

46  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. CCLXVIII, p. 147.
47  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare, no. CLXXIX, p. 215.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 189

Following this Mihnea disappears, resurfacing eleven years later under entire-
ly different circumstances. Times had changed. Mehmed II died in 1481, and
in 1484 his son and successor Bayezid II (1481–1512) had occupied Kilia and
Cetatea Alba. Moreover he concluded peace (actually, truces) with Matthias
Corvinus. Stephen of Moldavia resigned himself to the loss of his two for-
tresses (he himself had occupied Kilia in 1465), and he too resolved, in 1486, to
conclude a treaty with the sultan. In the eyes of the Ottomans, Moldavia was
henceforth within “the house of peace,” and Stephen devoted his last years to
Polish affairs.
Matthias Corvinus died in 1490. Although married three times, his only
son, John Corvinus, was illegitimate and thus could not succeed to the throne.
Instead, Vladislav Jagiello, king of Bohemia since 1471, was duly and proper-
ly elected by the Hungarian Diet, and reigned from 1490 to 1516. His brother
John Albert inherited the Polish throne in 1492, thus succeeding to their father
Casimir IV. The Jagiello kings intended to maintain good relations with the
Ottomans, preoccupied as they were by the rising power of Moscovy in
the east. Thus, except for a few raids between 1497 and 1499, peace reigned
among the Poles, Hungarians, and Turks.
This calming of the situation on the lower Danube explains the political
longevity of Vlad IV the Monk (1482–1495) and of his son and successor, Radu
the Great (1495–1508), both of whom were Turkish vassals, and who managed
to die on the throne. It’s therefore not surprising that Mihnea, despairing of
securing help from the Hungarians, turned to the Turks. Not, however, to sul-
tan Bayezid II, but to Mehmed bey Mihaloğlu, the very powerful governor of
Nicopolis who played a key role in the history of Wallachia during the first
quarter of the sixteenth century. Mehmed was the son of a living legend, Ali
bey Mihaloğlu, who commanded the Danubian akıncılar for some forty years.
Descendant of a Christian renegade—namely Köse Mihal, companion of the
first Ottoman sultans in Asia Minor in the fourteenth century—, Ali Mihaloğlu
was visibly present in the second half of the fifteenth century as a participant
in all of Mehmed II’s campaigns. He finished his days in 1500 or 1507 at the age
of one hundred. It is he who organized the raids to plunder and take prisoners
in Hungary and Wallachia. It was likewise he who captured Michael Szilágyi
and sent him to Constantinople, where he was hanged in 1460. A contempo-
rary Turkish historian, Suza C̦ elebi (d. 1524), dedicated to him a 15,000 verse
poem entitled Chronicle of the Campaigns of Mihaloǧlu Ali bey, which con-
tained, among other things, the story of Ali bey’s love for the beautiful Maria,
daughter of a ban of Wallachia
190 CHAPTER 6

… who possessed many lands and cities

and had innumerable armies under his tents
and treasures assembled with great effort.
This ban had a daughter as beautiful as the Virgin Mary
who lived hidden like the Messiah in pearls.48

From the marriage between Ali Bey Mihaloğlu and this noble Romanian
damsel was born Mehmed Bey, Mihnea’s patron. Historians thus far have not
securely identified Maria’s father, but in our opinion it doubtless was ban
Neagoe de la Craiova, one of the richest and most powerful Romanian nobles
of the second half of the fifteenth century, who died after 1475–1476. His four
sons were Barbu, Pârvu, Danciu, and Radu, and they placed a tombstone on
Vladislav II’s grave at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The inscription
on this stone reveals that Vladislav had raised members of the family to the
dignity of vlasteli, a Slavic term literally meaning “powerful”, but more precisely
the “parents of a prince.” This also explains the absence of their father Neagoe
from Vlad’s princely councils, and his late appearance in the sources. At the
end of his life, Neagoe was one of the richest men in Wallachia. His properties,
which he divided among his four sons, included one hundred thirty-three vil-
lages and one city, Craiova, which became the residence of the bans of Oltenia.
Geographically this estate was concentrated in southern and western Oltenia,
thus in the region adjacent to the Danube, and close to Semendria, where Ali
Mihaloğlu was based. Contemporary sources affirm that Ali Mihaloğlu’s son
Mehmed was related to the Craiovești boyars, sons of Neagoe de la Craiova. We
may consequently infer that Maria was one of their sisters.
Whatever the case, Mehmed bey was intimately tied to Wallachian history,
first as Mihnea’s patron, and then as ally of the Craiovești boyars, all the way
down to 1522. Finally, in May 1508, Mihnea succeeded in occupying the
Wallachian throne and the Craiovești found themselves obliged to accept and
support him, owing to the vulnerable situation of their estates, so close to the
Danube. A brief and bloody reign followed because, we are told by the coun-
try’s official chronicle:

Very quickly the wolf shed his sheepskin and stopping up his ears in
the manner of the asp or the basilisk, he took up his bow and arrows and

48  
Translation here derived from Cronici turcești, eds. Guboglu and Mehmet, 147. A
Moldavian chronicler, Abbot Macarie de Roman, reports that Mehmed “descended from
the family” of Neagoe Basarab, son of Pârvu Craiovescu. Cf. Cronicile slavo-romîne, eds.
Bogdan and Panaitescu, 79 (Slavonic), 93 (Romanian trans.).
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 191

prepared to kill and strike, making strong his arms the better to wound.
And he captured all the boyars, of great and good rank, and inflicted ter-
rible tortures upon them. He confiscated all their goods, and lay down
with their wives and daughters in front of their very eyes. He cut off the
noses and lips of some, he drowned others and many were hanged, whilst
he gathered untold riches to himself and rose high as a cedar to the sky
while doing whatever he pleased.49

Having plotted with one of his councillors the destruction of the entire
Craiovești clan, Mihnea could not prevent this secret from getting out. Thus
the Craiovești fled to Istanbul, where they implored the sultan for protection.
In response, the enraged son of Dracula burned and destroyed their manors
and their monastery, tortured their kin still remaining in the country, and cut
off the noses of all the priests in their villages. It even appears that Mihnea
tried to burn alive all the abbots of monasteries, and was planning many other
atrocities.
On this occasion, and probably at the sultan’s command, Mehmed bey
Mihaloğlu intervened in favor of the Craiovești and expelled Mihnea from the
throne in January 1510. Taking refuge in Sibiu, in the house his father built,
Mihnea converted to Catholicism and became devout. One Sunday after mass,
while he was leaving the Dominican Holy Cross church, he was surrounded by
a group of thirty-three hired assassins who killed him on the spot. The leader
of the group was a Serbian noble whose sister had been violated by Mihnea,
who then killed her husband. The Sibiu burghers had been horrified by
Mihnea’s misdeeds, and they were now rejoicing that justice had been done.
In the evening, however, Mihnea’s son Mircea and his men, who were absent
at the time Mihnea was murdered, took their vengeance. Mihnea was buried
in the church of the Holy Cross, beneath a marble tombstone which still exists.
On the wall of a neighboring building, a local artist even painted a portrait of
the prince. This is currently lost, but still could be seen and admired in the
eighteenth century.

The Descendants of the Sons of the Impaler

Mihnea left two sons, Mircea and Miloș, and a daughter Ruxandra. She married
her second cousin Bogdan, the son of Stephen the Great and Maria Voichiţa,
Radu the Handsome’s daughter. Mihnea sent his younger son, Miloș, as a

49  
Cantacuzinesc Chronicle, eds. Grecescu and Simonescu, 14–15.
192 CHAPTER 6

hostage to Istanbul, where he died in 1519, assassinated at the sultan’s order, at

the instigation of the prince of Wallachia. The elder son, Mircea, bore his great-
great grandfather’s name, and was associated to the throne in 1509. Shortly
thereafter, following his father’s deposition, he took refuge in Transylvania,
where he spent more than a decade before finding shelter and support from
none other than Mehmed Mihaloǧlu of Nicopolis. In October 1521, the two
men stormed into Wallachia to seize the vacant princely throne, but were de-
feated by the new voievod, Radu VI Afumaţi, a son of Radu the Great.
At this point Mircea disappears from the sources, but we can follow his des-
tiny through that of his sons—Alexander (1529–1577), Peter (1534–1594) and
Miloș. Two of them ruled in the Romanian states. Alexander (fig. 23) had a sin-
gle reign in Wallachia (1568–1577), whereas Peter’s in Moldavia was quite frag-
mented (1574–1577, 1578–1579, 1582–1591). Mircea’s third son, Miloș, was born
with a “withered” arm, was consequently considered unqualified to rule, and
finished his days as a professor in the patriarchal school of Constantinople.
Founder of the monastery of Nea Mone on Chios (in 1573), he enjoyed great
prestige in the Greek community of Constantinople and was buried its the pa-
triarchal church.
Of Dracula’s three great-grandsons, the oldest, Alexander, relates in two au-
tobiographical accounts that he was born in 1529, and spent forty years of his
life in exile, in Syria and Aleppo. Other contemporary sources reveal that he
was also lived in Rhodes and Alexandria, in Egypt. We may thus deduce that
his parents had themselves suffered exile, in their final years. Judging from this
succession of various habitations, the pretender and his family strongly desired
to distance themselves from Romanian lands. Obviously, then, Constantinople
was not considered a genuine place of exile, since the proximity of the Porte
and Ottoman central authorities could easily foster hopes of restoration to
power. Thus Rhodes was a more “appropriate address,” whereas Aleppo and
Alexandria were the dreaded destinations, since they were so distant from
the political center of the empire. Clearly the pretender Mircea and his family
changed residence whenever a new voievod ascended the Wallachian throne
who was more or less hostile to them.
The marriage of one of Mircea’s daughters with Michael Șeytanoğlu (Turkish
for “the son of the devil”), a very wealthy Constantinopolitan Greek and scion of
the Byzantine imperial Kantakouzenos family, allowed her brothers to return
to the capital and enjoy the support of grand vizier Mehmed Sokollu, who was
Șeytanoğlu’s patron and friend. In consequence, in summer 1568 Alexander
was appointed prince of Wallachia, where he showed very quickly that he
had inherited the temperament of his great grandfather Vlad Dracula and his
grandfather Mihnea. A month after his accession, he decapitated more than
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 193

two hundred boyars on the pretext that they had been compromised during his
predecessors’ tyrannical reigns. Another massacre took place on September 1,
and yet another the following month. Others followed in quick succession. At
length Alexander Mircea (as he is known in Romanian historiography) died in
September 1577, without having been overthrown. Other than his massacres of
boyars, he is remembered for a magnificent monastery near Bucharest (where
he was buried); another near Craiova, where he had a veritable chronicle of his
life inscribed on the walls; and a new unpopular tax on unfertile sheep. From
this came his nickname “Oaie seacă” (literally “dry, sterile sheep”).
His brother Peter, who ruled in Moldavia, is remembered quite differently.
According to a slightly later historian, he was:

… adorned with all the qualities which a man of honor should possess. To
the boyars, he was like a father; he held them in great regard and abided
by their counsel. He knew how to defend his country, was merciful to the
poor, and to the monasteries made new donations while confirming the
old. He lived in harmony with neighboring princes; he had the esteem
and affection of all, and yet was not incapable of wielding his power. He
rendered justice with kindness and clarity […]
We can thus call Peter “the Merciful,” because he renounced his goods
in favor of his country, and his equal would be hard to find. This prince
was gentle as a queen bee without a sting. He was fair in his judgments
and cared neither for drunkenness, debauchery, nor greed. We can say
that he conducted his affairs in model fashion, always seeking to avoid
upheaval .50

In truth, Peter lacked legitimacy in Moldavia since he was not descended from
the reigning dynasty, and owed his appointment to his brother, and more im-
portantly his brother-in-law, Michael Kantakouzenos. His three reigns were
troubled by attacks of pretenders, launched from the Cossack territory in the
Ukraine, and supported by Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible. At length incensed by the
sultan’s demands for colossal sums of money from Moldvia, Peter abdicated
and sought refuge in the Habsburg Empire. He settled in the Tyrol, died there
in 1594, and was buried in a chapel of the Franciscan monastery at Bolzano
(Bozen). On his tombstone one can read: “Peter, voievod of Moldavia, scion of
the royal Corvinus family of the Mihnea, princes of Wallachia, etc.”
His only son, Stephen, associated to the throne in 1590 and 1591, died in 1602
and was buried in the parish church of Saint James of Innsbruck.

50  Ureche, ed. and trans. Picot, 557–565.

194 CHAPTER 6

The successors of Alexander Mircea were more fortunate. When the latter
died in 1577, the Wallachian throne fell to his twelve year old son Mihnea II
(fig. 24), which favor was obtained in exchange for astronomically increasing
the tribute paid to the Turks. The rate was now fixed at 117,000 gold ducats per
year (whereas in Dracula’s times, it was 10,000), in addition to other contribu-
tions, gifts, bribes, and courtesies to the functionaries of the Porte. Mihnea II
reigned for eight years under the supervision of his mother, Catherine Salvaressa
(or Salvaresso), from a Greco-Levantine family of Pera, in Constantinople.
Overthrown in 1583, Mihnea II had to give way to a pretender supported by
Henri III of Valois. In 1585 he recovered his throne, only to be set aside a second
time after a reign of six years, which was marked by unprecedented fiscal pres-
sure. Feeling himself threatened, and to save his head, he converted to Islam,
along with his sons. He took the name Mehmed Bey in memory of Mehmed
Mihaloğlu, his grandfather Mircea’s friend, and likewise became governor of
Nicopolis on the Danube. He died in 1601 at the age of thirty-six.
One of his sons, Radu, better known under the name Radu Mihnea, domi-
nated the first quarter of the seventeenth century by the force of his personal-
ity, reigning five times variously in Wallachia and Moldavia. During his father’s
period of disgrace, between 1583 and 1585, Radu had been sent to an aunt in
Venice, namely Marioara Vallarga. Sister of Radu’s mother Catherine Salvaresso,
Marioara had married a Venetian nobleman, but then withdrew to the convent
of Murano. From Venice the princely child was dispatched to the monastery of
Iviron on Mount Athos, which meant he could escape from converting to Islam
in the manner of his father. When he returned to Constantinople, and thus was
closer to his father in Nicopolis, Radu Mihnea appeared rather incongruous
with Romanian society of the time. As voievod, he reigned with an entourage
formed solely of Greeks and Levantines, who enjoyed his confidence and occu-
pied the highest offices of the state. Among these were several members of the
Kantakouzenos family, who had fled Constantinople after 1593 or were born
in Wallachia. They rose to the top of society, and established lineages both in
Wallachia and Moldavia, branches of which endure to the present.51
Contemporaries were especially struck by the taste for pomp and splendor
at Radu Mihnea’s court, as Miron Costin attests in his Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei
[de la Aron vodă încoace] [Chronicles of the Land of Moldavia ( from the Rule of
Aron Vodă)]. He was a seventeenth century Moldavian historian who derived
his information from the prince’s former advisors:

51  Jean Michel Cantacuzène, Mille ans dans les Balkans: Chronique des Cantacuzène dans la
tourmente des siècles (Paris: Editions Christian, 1992); Cazacu, “Stratégies matrimoniales
et politiques des Cantacuzène,” 157–181.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 195

The reign of the voievod Radu the Great more resembled that of an em-
peror than that of a prince; for the organization of his household, he has
been called Radu the Great. […]
This prince Radu was deemed perfect in every way and of sound char-
acter. His words carried the weight of law, his judgments which were
without hypocrisy, always honorable and impartial, showed great accu-
racy and moderation. He was known to say “each prince, when he has to
judge the trial of a boyar with a curtean, should keep a strict eye on the
boyar, although the trial must follow the path of justice. Likewise when
a curtean is in court with a peasant, he must act and speak honorably
with regard to his prince, yet without allowing the trial to deviate from its
just course.” And in numerous counsels, he said to the princely officers:
“Let this man return tomorrow to receive sentence,” so much did he fear
making an error of judgment. […] And if the judgment proved not to be
correct, it was amended.
He often said: “Nothing harms a prince more than unsound words.”
Regarding his boyars, he was wont to say: “The wise and rich boyar is
greatly useful and honors the prince and the country, because the prince
who has five or six rich boyars fears nothing for his country.”
He spoke to all—boyars, princely officers, peasants—according to
their rank and always with gentleness and great wisdom, and even if he
was furious, it didn’t last a long time.
He greatly honored the boyars and often said: “It does not do to insult
a man that the prince has ennobled. If he does not behave as befits a
boyar, he [the prince] must remove him from his functions and replace
him with another, but it is not appropriate to insult him or ignore his
words if they are just.” […]
His fidelity to the empire [Ottoman] was greater than that of any
prince who came before or after him. The Christian kingdoms, notably
Poland, Hungary, and others, benefited from the great advantages he pro-
cured them. Being a Christian himself he protected them from many per-
ils. He was honest in his undertakings with the empire and in his duty as
a Christian. […] So thus, he benefited from the fidelity of the Turks and
the praise of the Christians, because all he did was marked by wisdom.52

Radu Mihnea’s moment of glory was doubtless his mediation of the peace
of Hotin (1621), concluded between the Turks and the Poles. The Wallachian
prince and his army were on the Ottoman side, and to bring the conflict to

52  Costin, ed. Panaitescu, 89–91.

196 CHAPTER 6

an end, Radu Mihnea dispatched to the Polish camp his advisor and friend
Constantin Batista Vevelli. Vevelli was a Cretan who had begun his career as
a merchant at Lvov, and thus spoke Polish. This mediation was decisive for
establishing peace, and both camps were grateful to Radu Mihnea for his
assistance.53
Suffering from gout in his hands and feet, Radu Mihnea died in 1626, barely
forty-two years old. He was succeeded, in both Romanian states, by his only
son Alexander, whose epithet was “the Child” (Coconul). The latter, however,
was even younger than Radu Mihnea when he died, i.e., at the age of twenty-
one. And with his passing, Vlad III Dracula’s lineage on both the male and fe-
male sides was extinguished.
It is interesting to note what great prestige these final epigoni felt they could
derive from their relationship with Matthias Corvinus. When Mihnea II, for
example, recovered the Wallachian throne for the third time in 1590, he erected
an altar in the monastery of St. Matthew at Murano, on which the following
Latin inscription was carved:

To the apostle Matthew. […] John Mihnea and the royal family of the
Corvinus, son of Alexander, his grandson Mihnea, great grandson of Radu
[this should read Vlad], voievod of Wallachia, Roman colony in Dacia, be-
yond the Danube, having understood that by the intercession of the saint
he was restored by the grace of God, to the paternal throne.54

53  See Maria Kasterska, “Les Roumains dans une épopée polonaise du XVIIe siècle (La
Guerre de Chocim, Wojna Chocimska, par Vaclav Potocki),” in Închinare lui Nicolae Iorga
cu prilejul împlinirii vârstei de 60 de ani [Collected essays in honor of Nicolae Iorga on
his sixtieth birthday], ed. Constantin Marinescu (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Institutului de is-
torie universală, 1931), 207–222. Vevelli’s biography has been reconstructed by Aurel H.
Golimas, “Diplomatul Constantin Batiște Vevelli Rettimiotul și revoluţia Moldovei din
primăvara anului 1633 [The diplomat Constantin Batiste Vevelli of Rethymonon and the
spring 1633 revolution in Moldavia],” Studii și cercetări istorice 18 (1943): 403–419. For addi-
tional information, see my “Istoricul bisericii Batiște din București [History of the Batiște
church in Bucharest],” Glasul Bisericii 23, nos. 7–8 (1964): 778–784. Vevelli’s role has es-
caped the notice of Darius Kołodziejczyk, Ottoman-Polish Diplomatic Relations (15th–18th
Century): An Annotated Edition of ‘Ahdnames and Other Documents, The Ottoman Empire
and its heritage, vol. 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 131–132.
54  Discovered and published by Nicolae Iorga, “Contribuţii la istoria Munteniei în a doua
jumătate a secolului al XVI-lea [Contributions to the history of Wallachia in the second
half of the 16th century],” Analele Academiei Române, Memoriile secţiunii istorice, series
2–a, 18 (1896): 66.
Propaganda, Exile, and Death ( 1463–1476 ) 197

We’ve already mentioned the 1594 inscription on the tomb of Mihnea II’s
uncle, Peter the Lame of Moldavia. Here he is described as “of the royal Corvine
family of the princes of Wallachia …” (ex Corvina Mihnistarum, Valachiae prin-
cipuum, regia familia). Radu Mihnea, in turn, in his correspondence with the
pope or foreign dignitaries, is entitled and referred to as Radu Mihnea Corvin.
Likewise his son Alexander is designated Alexander Corvin.55 The insistence
of Mihnea I’s descendants to proclaim their (false) descent from the family of
Matthias Corvinus must be written off to human vanity, which from the per-
spective of time, we may contemplate with sympathy.
Vlad Dracula’s descendants played an important role in the history of
Wallachia and even Moldavia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
they occupied the thrones of both countries for more than sixty years, between
1508 ad 1630. Indeed, the Basarab dynasty definitively ended with them. But
it’s important to note that princes from other families and noble Wallachian
clans, who reigned in the seventeenth century, appended the Basarab name
to theirs, to underscore their legitimacy and affiliation with the founding dy-
nasty of the state. As we’ve seen, Vlad’s direct descendants have left records
less bloody than that of their ancestor (with the exceptions of Mihnea I and
Alexander). And sometimes, as with Peter the Lame and Radu Mihnea, they
exalted the importance and usefulness of the noble class which Vlad persecuted
so badly. Mihnea II is known above all for his taxation, and the enormous
treasure which he inherited and personally amassed. Yet his use for this was
bribing the high dignitaries of the Ottoman court. And finally his son and suc-
cessor, Radu Mihnea, despite his sympathies for Catholicism, was perceived
more as a “Turkish prince,” because he looked after his brothers and sisters
who converted to Islam, something which rather annoyed the boyars. In much
the same way, his Greek entourage engendered a strong xenophobic and anti-
Greek current, which exploded in the pogroms of 1611 and which left its mark
on the entire seventeenth century in Wallachia and Moldavia.
These personages were Vlad’s direct descendants, for whom we have se-
cure documentation. In recent times, at least two Romanian families have
laid claim to being related to, or descended from, the prince. Doubtless the
most well known in Paris is Princess Alexandra [Tanda] Caragea [Karadja], de-
ceased now for a number of years, who asserted she was Dracula’s only living

55  
See Pavel Chihaia, “ ‘Familia Corvină’ a Ţării Românești [The “Corvin family” of
Wallachia],” in his De la “Negru Vodă” la Neagoe Basarab: Interferenţe literar-artistice în
cultura românească a evului de mijloc [From the “Black Prince” to Neagoe Basarab: literary
and artistic influences on medieval Romanian culture] (Bucharest: Editura Academiei
Republicii Socialiste, 1976), 120–123.
198 CHAPTER 6

descendant, and defender of his memory. Upset by the image which Francis
Ford Coppola’s film gives to her supposed ancestor, she even threatened the
filmmaker with a lawsuit, which evidently never materialized. This princess
boasted that she was the scion of someone who, at the end of the sixteenth
century, had married a noblewoman who descended, on the female side, from
Vlad IV the Monk, Dracula’s half brother. If this is true, then one might be-
lieve that Princess Caragea was a direct descendant of Vlad Dracul, and we
may leave aside Dracula, his son. However, it is difficult to accept that the an-
cestor in question, Michael [Mihalcea] Caragea, really married a descendant
of Vlad the Monk and had with her three daughters and a son, since the latter
died young and had no issue. The contemporary Caragea family descends from
the brother of this Michael, namely Constantin Caragea, by his son Dimitri
[Dimitrașcu] and so on.56
Some descendants of Dracula have recently appeared in Romania, more
precisely in Transylvania, without offering genealogical proof other than their
family names Géczi and Papp. As we’ve seen, certain members of these fami-
lies, descending from Vlad (i.e., Vlad Dracula’s youngest son) on the female
side, conjoined the Dracula name with theirs in the seventeenth century.
Let’s note, finally, that the names Ţepeș and Drăculea still exist in Romania,
throughout Wallachia as much as Moldavia.57

56  For the genealogy of the Caragea family, see Sturdza, Dictionnaire historique et géné-
alogique, 257. The wife of Michael [Mihalcea] was called Marula Cocorăscu, on which
see Stoicescu, Dicţionar al marilor dregători, 42. Also see Ioan C. Filitti, Arhiva Gheorghe
Grigore Cantacuzino (Bucharest: Inst. de Arte Grafice Carol Göbl, 1919), 254–255, and the
Caragea family genealogy in the Annex.
57  See, for example, the work of Alexis V. Dracula, Jurnalul meu de răsboiu [My war journal]
(Bucharest: Dimitrie C. Ionescu, 1918).
 CHAPTER 7

Tyrant or Great Sovereign?

Dracula’s death in 1476 did not end the debate about him, or the exploitation
of his personality in various writings, printed pamphlets or otherwise. But let
us place these both in the wider context of the rise of early modern European
monarchy, and thus discussions over the relationship between sovereigns and
corporate bodies in society. The same type of conflict had occurred in the
early fifteenth century between the papacy and the conciliar movement, and
essentially turned on this question: Which of these two protagonists—pope
or council, sovereign or people—had preeminence in the affairs of church
and state? In this debate, the caricature of the sovereign was, of course, the
tyrant—which type has figured prominently in political treatises since an-
tiquity. One question which has particularly preoccupied scholars and rulers
is whether it is legitimate to oppose a tyrant, and even to kill him, notwith-
standing the oath of loyalty binding him with his vassals and subjects.1 At the
beginning of the fifteenth century, the balance of opinion was shifting in
the direction of prioritizing corporate bodies and councils. In 1400, Wenceslas,
king of the Romans (1376–1400), was deposed by the seven electors, just as the
Councils of Pisa (1409) and Constance (in 1417) deposed the pope, on the same
theoretical principle. In the second half of the fifteenth century, and continu-
ing throughout the next, the growth and development of European monar-
chies and the wars of religion conferred on sovereigns increasing power and
strengthened authority over their vassals and subjects, which went hand in
hand with affirmation of the preeminence of the temporal over the spiritual.
We must situate the diffusion of Dracula’s image within this context of a
shifting balance of power, and likewise consider the debate which it has stimu-
lated. Was Dracula simply a tyrant, or rather a great sovereign in a new age?
Responses varied by region, and here we need to take into consideration
two key areas. First and foremost is the German-speaking central European
sphere, Catholic and partially Protestant after 1517, where Dracula makes his
appearance from 1463 as a symbol of the tyrant par excellance. The second area
where an image of Dracula was diffused is Muscovite Russia, and to a lesser
degree, contemporary Romania and the Balkans. This sphere is predominantly

1  Here see the highly important work of Mario Turchetti, Tyrannie et tyrannicide de l’Antiquité
à nos jours, Fondements de la politique, Série Essais (Paris: Presses universitaires de France,
2001), whose arguments I’ve adopted throughout this chapter.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_008

200 CHAPTER 7

Orthodox, and the language of religion and culture was Slavonic, along with
Greek and Turkish. Here Dracula figured as a great sovereign who inspired
“groază,” or reverential fear, exactly like the sixteenth century tsar Ivan Grozny
(“the Terrible”).

The Evolving Die Geschicht Dracole Waide [The History of Voievod

Dracula]

We have previously discussed the appearance and diffusion of the pamphlets

about the Wallachian prince, which were printed in Vienna in 1463 and bore
his portrait on the front page. Copied at least four times, incorporated in the
works of pope Pius II and Thomas Ebendorfer, and diffused orally particular-
ly owing to the minstrel Michael Beheim’s poem, the account of the tyrant
Dracula’s cruelties was even echoed in the chronicle of the monastery of Melk,
in 1477. The final entry in the Annals of Melk refers to Vlad’s captivity, his con-
version to Christianity (!), his return to the throne, and finally his death at the
hands of his subjects. The author of this notice was John of Mediaș (Medgyes),
a monk originally from Transylvania and prior of Melk in 1483, who was also
known under the name of John of Transylvania (Johannes de Septem Castris,
or Transilvanus).
As is obvious, interest in the Wallachian prince was not extinguished after
1463, and stories emanating from Hungary, Transylvania and Wallachia were
still recounting his actions. These stories were circulated about by merchants,
monks, or people living in Buda in Matthias Corvinus’ entourage.
It’s nonetheless surprising to note that, beginning in 1488, the GDW pam-
phlet was printed anew, usually with the title Die Geschicht Dracole Waide [The
History of Voievod Dracula]. Indeed, between 1488 and 1568 there were thir-
teen known editions. All appeared in Germany, in the large imperial cities: five
in Nuremberg (1488, in two editions, 1499, ca. 1520; 1521); three in Augsburg
(1494, 1520–1542, 1559–1568); and one each in Lübeck (1488–1493), Bamberg
(1491), Leipzig (1493), Strasbourg (1500), and Hamburg (1502).2
The first printing in Nuremberg was done by Mark (or Marx) Ayrer, and
bears the date of October 14, the Feast of St. Calixtus. Ayrer was a native of
Nuremberg and studied at the University of Ingolstadt. A typical itinerant print-
er, since 1483 he had produced Latin almanacs and popular German books in
Nuremberg, and items in the same vein at Regensburg (1490), Bamberg (1492),

2  For description, editions, and bibliography see Harmening, Der Anfang von Dracula, 82–96;
Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 44ff., 154–167.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 201

Ingolstadt (1496), Erfurt (1498), and Frankfurt an der Order (1502). His edi-
tion of the GDW reproduces the 1463 Vienna text, but omits certain anecdotes,
modifies the order of others, and adds a new episode, which contrasts a syco-
phantic monk with another who tells the truth, and is rewarded by Dracula.
The other editions generally follow Ayrer’s version, with three exceptions
(Augsburg, 1494; Nuremberg, 1499; Strasbourg, 1500), which faithfully repro-
duced the text of the 1463 incunabulum. The thirteen reprints also reproduced
Vlad’s portrait on the front page, but with some significant differences. The
most recent of these, for example, goes so far as to use a portrait of a Turk,
namely sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. The Strasbourg edition is adorned
with the famous scene of Dracula feasting amidst the corpses of impaled vic-
tims (figs. 11–12). Another simply presents the Crucifixion, thus implicitly situ-
ating the protagonist among the persecutors of Christ and the Christians.
Was this renewed interest in the figure of “Dracula the tyrant” gratuitous, or
did it reflect some rather deliberate intent? In other words, did Mark Ayrer, and
then Peter Wagner—likewise in 1488, and in Nuremberg—print the account
solely for its qualities as a popular book, to be appreciated by readers from
their great merchant city? Or was this commissioned at someone else’s instiga-
tion, for other objectives? Evidence to resolve the question is lacking, but let’s
reread the final paragraph of the later printing:

Soon after this the king of Hungary captured him and kept him captive for
a long time under harsh [conditions]. Afterwards he let himself be bap-
tized publicly and did great penance. After this the king made Voievod
Dracula a ruler again as before. And people say he thereafter did many
good things.3

Now let’s compare this with its counterpart in the earlier 1463 edition:

And they surrounded [Dracula] and captured him. And he is still alive.4

These lines also appear in Pius II and Thomas Ebendorfer, and the notices of
Leonhard Hefft:

3  G DW 1488, translation here from Appendix p. 369, Episode 32. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1488, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 32, pp. 166
[German]/167 [French].
4  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 316, Episode 36. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 36, pp. 102
[German]/103 [French].
202 CHAPTER 7

Brought captive to Buda, he is imprisoned to the present, under close

guard.5

The Annals of Melk records the following for the year 1477:

And then he was captured, put in chains, and—what is astonishing—

made a Christian, returned to his throne, and killed by his own [people].
1463.6

The ending of the 1488 edition is important because it proclaims Matthias

Corvinus’ benevolence in terminating Dracula’s tyranny, obliging him to re-
pent, and reforming him as a good Christian (or simply a Christian), who
thus accomplished a great many good deeds. Consequently, the persecutor
of the Saxon burghers and merchants in Transylvania, the tyrant thirsting for
the blood of his subjects, and the executioner of more than a hundred thou-
sand victims, has returned to the bosom of the church after a long period of
penance. And unburdened of the weight of his innumerable sins, he has found
his salvation thanks to the king of Hungary.
In our view, this paragraph explains the reprinting of the pamphlet in
Nuremberg in 1488 (fig. 8). At that time this city was regarded, in the words of
Luther, as “the eye, as it were, and ear of Germany, which seeth and heareth
every thing.”7 A flourishing commercial center, deeply attached to the freedom
of commerce and merchants, maintaining close ties with Hungary and the
east, it was the most prosperous city of Germany. Throughout his long conflict
with Frederick III—from 1458 over recovery of the royal crown of Hungary, and
then over modification of the terms of the 1463 Treaty of Wiener Neustadt—
Matthias Corvinus had tenaciously sought the support of the German cities. In
1485, after his occupation of Vienna, the king had ordered that printed notices
hostile to the emperor be put up, which annoyed the latter exceedingly. Two
years later, in 1487, Matthias Corvinus’ troops seized Wiener Neustadt, the pre-
ferred residence of his adversary, who henceforth was pushed to the defensive
on all fronts.

5  For the Latin originals, see Pius II, Commentarii, ed. Cazacu, 91; Thomas Ebendorfer, Cronica
regum Romanorum, ed. Cazacu, 88; Leonhard Hefft, Chronica pontificum et regnum romano-
rum, ed. Cazacu, 24. For further discussion on the latter citations, see Cazacu, L’histoire du
prince Dracula, 23–25.
6  For the original Latin and further discussion, see Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 37.
7  As, for example, in a letter of his to Eoban Hess, dated April or May, 1528 (trans. Sears, 426).
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 203

The military campaign of 1482–1487 resulted from Frederick III’s refusal

to modify the article of the Treaty of Wiener Neustadt stipulating that only
Matthias’ legitimate heirs could assume the crown of Hungary. From Matthias’
two marriages—first with Catherine Podiebrad in 1461, then with Beatrice of
Aragon in 1476—no children were produced. He did, however, have a son—
John Corvinus—, who was born in 1473 from a liaison with a Viennese woman.
Matthias had him proclaimed, in 1487, as his successor to the throne. At the
height of his power, in 1487, Matthias arranged for John to marry, by proxy,
Bianca Maria Sforza, the daughter of Ludovico il Moro, the duke of Milan. After
occupying Vienna and all of lower Austria, Matthias assumed the title “duke of
Austria,” and worked at forcing Frederick to recognize John as his lawful suc-
cessor. In this undertaking he sought the political support of Nuremberg and
other imperial cities represented at the Diet, whose influence might change
the emperor’s mind.
But there was more. Matthias Corvinus had attempted to establish a cen-
tralized national monarchy in Hungary, in which the king was the “living law,”
and the power of the traditional social orders and the great landed aristocracy
was neutralized. This system was supported by the army and a bureaucracy
which managed the resources of the state. This conception of the modern
state—which we find with Louis XI in France, Henry VII Tudor in England, the
Sforzas in Milan, and the Medicis in Florence—needed a coherent ideological
narrative, justifying the concentration of power in the hands of the sovereign.
To achieve this, Matthias Corvinus appealed to the Italian and Hungarian hu-
manists, and exploited historiography, the printing press, patronage, Latin and
popular poetry, and even printed pamphlets.8
In the same vein the king patronized the publication of the Chronica
Hungarorum [Chronicle of the Hungarians], written by the chief notary
Johannes de Thurocz, which appeared in two editions, in 1488, in Brno and
Augsburg. His chronicle exalted the Corvinian national monarchy in contrast
to the pretension of the Habsburgs. Around the same time, Matthias Corvinus
commissioned from the Italian humanist Antonio Bonfini (1434–1503) another
history of Hungary, in which it was “proved” that the Roman family Corvini

8  See La renaissance et la réformation en Pologne et en Hongrie = Renaissance und Reformation

in Polen und in Ungarn (1450–1650), ed. György Székely, Studia historica Academiae scien-
tiarum hungariae, vol. 53 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1963); Tibor Kardos, Studi e ricerche
umanistiche italo-ungheresi I., Studia romanica Universitatis Debreceniensis de Ludovico
Kossuth nominatae, ed. J. Herman, Series litteraria, vol. 3 (Debrecen: Kossuth Lajos tudo-
mányegyetem, 1967); Jean Bérenger, “Caractères originaux de l’humanisme hongrois,” Journal
des savants 4, no. 1 (1973): 257–288.
204 CHAPTER 7

had been revived by an act of God to reign in Hungary. The fusion of the king’s
genealogy to the gens Corvina was something unique for the time, and was
emulated in Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, Germany (under Maximilian I), and all
the way to Russia. There, the grand prince Vasily III was credited with an an-
cestry going back to a parent of Octavian Augustus, through the Scandinavian
dynasty of Rurik.9
Unfortunately, Bonfini finished his work well after the death of Matthias
Corvinus, and it wasn’t printed until the end of 1543. On the other hand, the
stories of Vlad Dracula’s cruelties toward the Saxon merchants were now cir-
culating throughout all of Germany, and were even being enriched with new
episodes, as the 1499 Nuremberg and 1500 Strasbourg editions attest.10
Matthias Corvinus’ premature death in 1490, at the age of forty-seven, was
the death knell of his plan for a national Hungarian dynasty at the head of
a centralized state. It did not, however, spell the end of the running conflict
with the Habsburgs. This time it was Frederick III’s son Maximilian, elected
king of the Romans in 1486, who recovered Austria and invaded Hungary,
the crown of which he aspired to take. The Hungarian aristocracy did not
recognize John Corvinus’ candidacy and elected as king Vladislav Jagiello
of Bohemia, who was able to halt his competitor’s offensive, and conclude
peace at Presburg (1491). This treaty stipulated that Maximilian would
succeed to the Hungarian throne if his rival died without legitimate heirs.
And indeed Vladislav Jagiello and his wife Anne de Foix, countess of Candale,
had a son, Louis, who was born in 1506. Louis succeeded his father and died
in 1526 at the Battle of Mohács, fighting the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the
Magnificent. The crowns of Hungary and Bohemia passed to Ferdinand of
Habsburg, brother of Charles V and grandson of Maximilian. Ferdinand’s wife
was Anne, sister of Louis Jagiello’s sister. Although the succession was contest-
ed by John Zapolya, and then by his minor son John Sigismund—both of whom
were supported by the Turks, who occupied Buda and central Hungary—,
Ferdinand’s claims to the Hungarian crown remained intact. It was on these
grounds that Leopold I (King of Hungary and Bohemia 1658–1705; Holy Roman
Emperor 1658–1705) reoccupied Hungary and Transylvania, which then be-
came an integral part of the Habsburg Empire down to 1918.

9  Matei Cazacu, “Aux sources de l’autocratie russe: Les influences roumaines et hongroises
(XVe–XVIe siècles),” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 24, nos. 1–2 (1983): 16ff. Reprinted
in Cazacu, Au carrefour des Empires et des mers, 281–310. Citation reference here is to the
1983 publication. Also Mihail-Dimitri Sturdza, Dictionnaire historique et généalogique des
grandes familles de Grèce, d’Albanie, et de Constantinople (Paris: M-D. Sturdza, 1983), 19.
10  Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 45.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 205

The Incarnation of Evil

In any event, it was after 1490 that The History of Voievod Dracula lost its
political currency and became a popular book, bedtime reading for a pub-
lic fond of a literature where tyrants and merchants increasingly played the
leading role. In this way, Dracula became an exemplum, the incarnation of
evil, a tyrant like Herod the murderer of innocents, or Nero and Diocletian
the persecutors of Christians, who used tortures comparable to those attrib-
uted to Dracula, and which preachers knew from the lives of the martyrs.
Thus, in Theodore Zwinger’s Theatrum vitae humanae (Basel, 1571), Dracula
is placed among the wicked princes, under the chapters “Cruelties of Princes
Towards their Subjects,” “Interrogation and Painful Tortures,” and “Inhumanity
Towards the Sick.” In his 1573 poem Flöh Hatz, Weiber Tratz [Fleas’ Hew and
Cry, Women’s Bold Defy], Johann evokes Dracula’s meal amidst the impaled
corpses to highlight the sacred character of the meal and its defilement
by crimes. The same scene appears graphically in the 1500 Strasbourg edi-
tion, printed by Matthias Hupfuff (fig. 11). In his 1581 collection of exempla,
Zacharias Rivander evokes Dracula’s cruelties in the chapter “Historien und
Exempel von bösen und Gottlosen Regenten und Oberkeiten von Tyrannen
und ihren bösen unlöblichen und tyrannischen Thaten und Wercken.” Finally, in
1596, Georg Steinhart enumerates the misdeeds of the “savage” tyrant, but adds
that he strove to maintain fidelity and faith.11
In all these texts, the cruelties attributed to Dracula are comparable to those
of Mehmed II, which also were disseminated in various historical accounts
and moralizing tracts.12 Since the middle of the fifteenth century, the Catholic

11  Harmening, Der Anfang von Dracula, 41–52.

12  Cf. the accounts of De Promontorio de Campis, Angiolello, and Theodore Spandounes,
which made their way into popular songs. On this see Șenol Özyurt, Die Türkenlieder und
das Türkenbild in der deutschen Volksüberlieferung von 16. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (Munich:
W. Fink, 1972), and Göllner, Turcica, vol. 3, Die Türkenfrage in der öffentlichen Meinung
Europas. William Layher explains the popularity of the GDW pamphlets at the end of the
fifteenth century as a reflex of contempory fears of Ottoman oppression and cruelties:
“The printed accounts about the horrific deeds of a Wallachian prince himself caught
up between East and West emphasized the fact that the border dividing the Christian
West from the Muslim East was a porous and ever-changing one in the late 15th century,
and that the brutalities that took place ‘then’—from the perspective of Nuremberg in
1488—could easily return and become ‘now’ once more” (“Horrors of the East: Printing
Dracole Wayda in 15th-century Germany,” in “Consuming News: Newspapers and Print
Culture in Early Modern Europe [1500–1800],” eds. Barbara Becker-Cantarino et al., spe-
cial issue, Daphis: Zeitschrift für Mittlere Deutsche Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit
(1400–1750) 37, Heft 1–2 (2008): 29.
206 CHAPTER 7

Church celebrated the “Mass Against the Turks,” a last vestige of the ancient
“missa contra paganos,” and had identified Mehmed II as the Antichrist in
1453, the year in which Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. Thus the tor-
tures which Mehmed II and Dracula inflicted were part of the long list of
torments suffered by the martyrs of the Church. And the latter were oblig-
ingly enumerated in the lives of the saints—whether as independent texts
or incorporated in collections (martyrologies)—, evoked by preachers, and
depicted in churches and chapels.13 There one would see, for example, Saint
Laurence being grilled; Saints Bartholomew and Crispin of Soissons, hav-
ing their skin torn off to make belts; Saint Felicitas, carrying her seven sons’
decapitated heads; Saint Denis, carrying his own head; Saint Vincent of
Saragossa and Saint Eulalia of Merida, having their chests torn apart with
iron hooks; Saints Josaphat and Peter of Verona, each with an axe planted in their
heads; Saint George, being sawed down the middle … And there was a plethora
of instruments of torture. The breaking wheel, on which Saints Catherine and
Christine, and many other martyrs died; the pliers which wrenched out the
teeth of Saints Appolonia and Febronia; the red hot brazen bull, within which
Saints Pelagia of Tarsus, Eustachius, and Barbarus were burned; the shoes filled
with pointed nails, which martyrs like Saint Tryphon and Eustratius were com-
pelled to put on, and run with; the cauldron of boiling water (or pitch) used
in martyring Saints Cyprian, Justina, Fausta, Juliana of Nicomedia, and Lucia
of Syracuse; and of course the commonplace instruments of torture through-
out Christian martyrology, namely rods, whips, sabers, and lances. And let’s
not forget, in conclusion, the panoply of tortures to which Saints George (for
seven years), Christine, Clement of Ankara (for twenty-eight years) and others
were subjected.
Radu Constantinescu, a specialist in medieval law, was intrigued to com-
pare the punishments inflicted by Dracula with those prescribed in the
law codes used by the Transylvanian Saxons, and in comparable collec-
tions current in central and southeastern Europe during the second half

13  For examples see Hippolyte Delehaye, Les Passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires,
2nd rev. ed., Subsidia hagiographica, vol. 13 B (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1966).
For medieval collections of saints’ lives, see René Aigrain, L’hagiographie: Ses sources, ses
méthodes, son histoire, Subsidia hagiographica, vol. 80 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes,
2000), and also Jacques Dubois and Jean-Loup Lemaitre, Sources et méthodes de
l’hagiographie médiévale, with preface by Joseph van der Straeten (Paris: Éditions du Cerf,
1993).
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 207

of the fifteenth century.14 In studying the Altenberger Codex—named after

Thomas Altenberger, a royal judge of Sibiu contemporary with Dracula—
Constantinescu discovered that, in addition to the legislation operative in
the Hungarian kingdom, the Transylvanian Saxons used German law codes.
Among these were Der Schwabenspiegel [The Mirror of the Swabians], cop-
ied in manuscript in Vienna and Wiener Neustadt between 1448 and 1463,
and then printed from 1468–1477 in Augsburg; the Law of Magdeburg; the
Mining Law of Iglau, also used in Serbia, and then the Ottoman Empire; and
the Law of Nuremburg, in print as of 1484.15
Remarkable in all these codes, as well as the Hungarian kings’ edicts and
decrees, is the great severity of the punishments, putting them on par with
Ivan III’s 1497 Sudebnik [Law Code]. The latter was probably inspired by
the same underlying sources, as mediated by Fyodor Kuritsyn. The rather
surprising conclusion which emerges from this comparative study is that
Vlad, in torturing and killing the Transylvanian Saxons and his Romanian
subjects in Amlaș and Făgărăș, in reality was doing nothing more than apply-
ing penalties prescribed in their own laws. Some of these tortures were sim-
ply ordeals—tests of guilt or innocence by fire, water, and submersion in a
barrel,16 for cases such as robbery or counterfeiting money. In these codes,
merchants who didn’t respect commercial prohibitions or customs regula-
tions were equated with thieves and subjected to horrible punishments, just as
were perjurers, sorcerers, poisoners, adulterers, arsonists, and parricides. The
torture of impalement was not simply a Romanian and Hungarian variant of

14  Radu Constantinescu, Codicele Altenberger [The Altenberger Codex] (Bucharest: Editura
Meridiane, 1988).
15  Schwabenspiegel: Kurzform, ed. Karl Eckhardt, 2 vols., Germanenrechte, Neue Folge,
Land- und Lehnrechtsbücher (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, and Witzenhausen: Deut­
schrechtlicher Instituts-Verlag, 1960–1961); abridged edition in Schwabenspiegel:
Kurzform, Landrecht, Lehnrecht, Monumenta Germaniae historica inde ab anno Christi
quingentesimo usque ad annum millesimum et quingentesimum, Fontes iuris Germanici
antiqui, nova ser., vol. 4, parts 1–2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1984); Adolf Zycha, Das böhmische
Bergrecht des Mittelalters auf Grundlage des Bergrechts von Iglau, 2 vols. (Berlin: F. Vahlen
1900); Nürnberger Polizeiordnngen aus dem XIII bis XV Jahrhundert, ed. Joseph Baader,
Bibliothek der Literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, vol. 63 (Stuttgart: Litterarischer Verein,
1861); and Hermann Knapp, Das alte Nürnberger Kriminalrecht (Berlin: Guttentag, 1896).
16  Cf. Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, Appendix, pp. 324–325, ll. 244–257, and p. 326,
ll. 312–316. For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans.
McDonald, ll. 244–257, p. 206, and ll. 313–316, p. 208. For the original German with facing
French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, ll. 244–257, pp. 116 [German]/117 [French],
and ll. 313–316, pp. 120 [German]/121 [French].
208 CHAPTER 7

western capital punishments, but also occurs in German legal contexts as a

punishment applicable both to males and females.17 Capital punishment was
also applied to guarantors of merchants who violated commercial laws, just as
it was to mendicant friars utilizing beasts of burden or two- or four-wheeled
carts to transport alms.
For Constantinescu, Vlad’s actions reflect a scrupulous application of
the judicial measures of his time, and not a tyrant’s bloody capriciousness.
Constantinescu’s study, overall, represents an important contribution to the
relatively unknown history of medieval law, which to our eyes seems so exces-
sively severe and cruel. Nevertheless, it hardly negates the malaise one feels
in reading the German pamphlets of 1463 and 1488–1568, or the accounts of
Michael Beheim or Bonfini.
But this approach is not entirely new. In 1480, the great vornic Neagul,
counselor of Prince Basarab IV Ţepeluș (“Little Impaler”), wrote a letter to the
Brașov burghers. After elaborating his prince’s complaints against them, he set
forth a historical reminder (and here let’s not forget that he was writing three
years after Dracula’s death):

So I, desiring your well-being, say to you: No longer take counsel from

the enemies of my prince and no longer shelter them in your parts and
your region, and give them no further hospitality, but quickly chase them
away. [Need you] but remember, who began impaling people? It was
always the refugees and yourselves who had raised up Dan [III] as prince
among you. It is because of this that prince Vlad was angered with
you and wished to do you harm, and he began to impale people, and
brought fire to you. So reflect, then, for I repeat that my words have
never been false and will not be this time, but I tell you the truth. Reflect
then, … because you are wise and too wise, and do quickly that which you
have to do.18

17  Sever-Mircea Catalan, “Roman lui Bram Stoker și soarta atribuită sufletului lui Vlad
Ţepeș-Drăculea de unele izvoare medievale [Bram Stoker’s novel and the fate attributed
to the soul of Vlad Ţepeș-Drăculea by certain medieval sources],” in Închinare lui Petre
Ș. Năsturel la 80 de ani [Festschrift for Petre Ș. Năsturel on his eightieth birthday], eds.
Ionel Cândea et al. (Brăila: Muzeul Brăilei, Editura Istros, 2003), 279–280. The key earlier
references which Catalan cites are Albert Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel des peuples
modernes: Considéré dans ses rapports avec les progrès de la civilisation, depuis la chute
de l’empire romain jusqu’au XIX siècle, vol. 2 (Paris: Auguste Durand, 1858), 617; Folke
Ström, On the Sacral Origin of the Germanic Death Penalties, Inaugural dissertation (Lund:
H. Ohlsson, 1942), 210; and Giraudo, Drakula, 86.
18  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare la relaţiile, no. CCXXI, pp. 273–274. Cited by Andreescu,
Vlad the Impaler, 292.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 209

A Pious Prince?

It’s evident, then, that Dracula didn’t invent new torments, unknown in medi-
eval law codes or the martyrologies, or at least very few. But let’s assess, now,
how his image as a persecutor of the church and Christians matches up with
historic fact.
We know that Vlad was an Orthodox Christian, like the majority of the
Wallachian population. The prince is furthermore credited with founding at
least two churches—Târgșor and Comana—, and perhaps carrying out reno-
vations at Snagov. He made donations, in any case, to all three. He also made
donations to, and confirmed privileges of, two Athonite monasteries—namely
Saint Panteleimon (Russian) in 1457, and Philotheou in 1460–1461.19 For two
other monasteries—Cozia, founded by his grandfather, and Tismana, which
was even older—the prince issued charters in 1457 and 1458 confirming their
properties and privileges (exemption from certain taxes, etc.).20 Now, by
way of comparison, let us recall that Vladislav II, who reigned for nine years,
founded only one church. And Stephen the Great (1457–1504) erected his
first only after ten years on the throne. Vlad built two or three, in a reign of
six years.
Despite the general paucity of sources for the period, this evidence is suffi-
cient to characterize Dracula as a very pious prince, and a friend of the church.
Yet the German pamphlets depict him as a new Herod, Nero, or Diocletian—
persecutor of the church and its faithful, and even a despiser of religion. He
burned the church of Saint Bartholomew in Brașov and laid hands on its re-
ligious artifacts and chalices. He chose a spot in the vicinity of the Chapel of
Saint James, near Brașov, to impale his victims and have a meal in their midst.
According to the Annals of Melk, he even removed the altar table to use for din-
ing, a detail not found in any other source.
Let us note that Dracula’s assaults were directed solely against Catholic
churches dependent on the city of Brașov, with which he was in conflict. The
same is true for his persecution of priests and monks, who were also Catholic.
These episodes likewise serve as theological discussions wherein the prince
has the conceit to interpret doctrine better than men of religion.
Let’s take, as our first example, an episode narrated in The History of Voievod
Dracula (no. 20, in the 1463 edition), where the cleric’s confessional bias is not
indicated:

19  D RH B, vol. 1, no. 116, pp. 201 [Panteleimon] and no. 119, p. 205 [Philotheou].
20  Ibid., no. 115, pp. 198–200 [Cozia] and no. 117, pp. 201–202 [Tismana].
210 CHAPTER 7

A priest had preached that sins would not be forgiven unless one ren-
der justice for an injustice. Now [Dracula] invited this same priest to his
house, and set him at [his] table. Then the lord [i.e., Dracula] broke [some
pieces of] simmel bread into his food. The priest took one of the broken
[morsels] with his spoon. Then the lord [i.e., Dracula] spoke [about] how
[the priest] had preached … [forgiveness of] sins, etc. etc. The priest said:
“Lord, that’s true.” Then Dracula said to him: “Then why do you take my
bread that I’ve broken [into my food]?” And he had him immediately
impaled.21

The 1488 pamphlet contains an episode (no. 27) which is clearly incomplete.22
Michael Beheim, however, provides a detailed version, clarifying that the two
monks are Cistercians asking for alms:

Two monks of Saint Bernard who / were wearing wooden clogs / came to
Dracula. / Alms they / desired of him and made their request / of one ac-
cord. / Dracula said to them: / “How is it that you are so poverty-stricken?”
/ They answered: “My lord, Eternal Life / we hope to attain with our way
of living.” / Thereupon he asked of the two brothers: / “Don’t you desire to
get [to heaven] soon?” / They said: “Your worship, yes! We / wished that
we were already there—/ if this be the Lord God’s will!” / He said: “I will
help you quickly / get to heaven.” / Promptly, he had them impaled, / say-
ing: “I did it for honorable reasons. / My assistance can only profit them.”
/ These same two good brothers / had left their donkey standing there /
in Dracula’s courtyard / where their sustenance (food and bread) / and
whatever God had bestowed upon them / was to be found. / This beast
went into the castle, / braying loudly. / Dracula said: “See what might be /
causing such a racket!” / His servants said: “These two / monks left behind
a jackass; / it is making all this noise.” / He responded: “No doubt, it also
/ would gladly go to heaven with its masters! / Perhaps I need to help it

21  G DW 1463, translation here from Appendix, p. 313, Episode 20. For the original German
with accompanying French translation, see GDW 1463, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 20,
pp. 98 [German], 97/99 [French]. Cf. McNally and Florescu’s English translation, in their
In Search of Dracula (1994), Episode 19 [sic], p. 196.
22  See Appendix, p. 368, Episode 27. For the original German with facing French translation,
see GDW 1488, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 27, pp. 164 [German]/165 [French].
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 211

/ come to them as quickly as possible.” / Dracula then took the donkey /

and had it impaled forthwith—/ close by the brother monks.23

A third episode, which does not appear in the printed pamphlets, recounts
Vlad’s conversation with two barefoot monks, Michael and Hans, from the
monastery of Gorrion (Gornji Grad, Oberburg, near Ljubljana), who had taken
refuge in Wallachia. From 1461–1462 this monastery effectively became the res-
idence of the bishops of Ljubljana, who expelled the monks and forced them
to seek asylum in Austrian monasteries, notably Melk and Lambach. There,
a copy of the GDW derived from the 1463 incunabulum was preserved down
to the early twentieth century. Three of the expelled monks—Michael, Hans,
and James—found refuge in Wallachia, probably in the Catholic monastery of
Târgoviște. It was here that they encountered Dracula, after he returned from
his winter 1462 campaign south of the Danube. In Michael Beheim’s depiction,
the first brother, Michael, was questioned by Vlad as follows:

Dracula asked him / whether he yet was convinced / and sure that Dracula
could be saved, / notwithstanding [the monk’s] awareness / of the host
of people / to be seen in Heaven—/ all the people that Dracula had slain.
/ One was to pray assiduously for him / to God with imploration and
pleading—/ inasmuch as he [Dracula] had created many saints / and had
sent many to Heaven. / In fact, there could be no doubt that / [he believed
himself to be] the holiest man / that a mother had ever given birth to. /
For this there could be no disproof.

Brother Michael’s response accords well with the message in the printed
version of the GDW:

… Sire, / you may well find mercy / since God has granted grace to many
a man / appearing to be far from favor.24

23  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, pp. 335–336, ll. 641–680.
For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald,
ll. 641–680, pp. 217–218. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed.
and trans. Cazacu, ll. 641–680, pp. 134/136 [German], 135/137 [French].
24  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, p. 337, ll. 717–720. For
the original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald,
ll. 717–720, p. 219. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed. and
trans. Cazacu, ll. 702–720, pp. 136/138 [German], 137/139 [French].
212 CHAPTER 7

On the other hand, in response to Dracula’s question “Brother monk, now tell
me, / what do you think will be my fate?,” Brother Hans, the monastery guard-
ian, told the tyrant that he would be condemned to eternal punishment, that
even the devil wouldn’t want him, and that the blood of innocents will cry out
for vengeance upon him. In response, “one pole [or pike] / Dracula himself
hammered into his brain. / [The monk’s] head was at the bottom and his feet
/ were facing upwards.”25
It is curious to note how this episode, recounted to Beheim by an eyewit-
ness, has been transformed in the 1488 edition of the GDW:

There were two monks who came into his country, [and] he invited
them to come to him, which happened. Then he took the one monk and
asked him what good people said of him. This monk was very frightened
and said: “People say everything good about you and that you are a very
pious lord, [and] this I also say of you.” He ordered that this monk be
held. And the other monk was brought to him, who was questioned by
him like the first. Then the second monk thought: “I must die, [so] I will
tell him the truth,” and he said: “You are the greatest tyrant one could find
in the world, and I’ve met nobody who ever says good of you, and this
you have well proven.” Then Dracula said: “You have told me the truth,
therefore I will let you live,” and he let him alone. And he sent again for
the first monk, and asked him if he would also speak the truth. Then he
spoke as before. And Dracula said: “Take him away and have him impaled
because of [his] dishonesty.”26

This transformation is important, and reveals how circumspect we must be

in interpreting the printed version as a historical source. This observation is
equally valid for the Skazanie o Drakule voevode, which we’ll deal with sub-
sequently, which modifies the episode so as to adapt it to contemporary
Russian political realities, namely the polemic between those supporting the

25  Cf. Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, Appendix, pp. 337–339, ll. 721–800, with quote
(ll. 797–800) on p. 339. For the original German with parallel English translation, see ed.
and trans. McDonald, ll. 721–800, pp. 221–222, with quote (ll. 797–800) on p. 222. For the
original German with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, ll. 721–800,
pp. 138/140 [German], 139/141 [French], with quote (ll. 797–800) on pp. 140 [German]/141
[French].
26  G DW 1488, translation here from Appendix, p. 368, Episode 29. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1488, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 29, pp. 164
[German]/165 [French].
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 213

engagement of the church in affairs of state, and those zealous for its retreat
from the world.
As for the houses of worship, let us again note that the monks who were
persecuted were exclusively Catholic. Vlad’s distrust of mendicant monks
and preachers of that ilk is understandable when one considers the history of
Wallachia, and for that matter of Moldavia as well. Since the creation of the ec-
clesiastical metropolitanates dependent on the patriarchate of Constantinople
in the fourteenth century, the orthodoxy of the majority of the Romanian
population in the two states, and also in Transylvania, was solidly rooted. The
Hungarian king’s efforts to return these populations to the Catholic fold en-
tailed pressures on the princes and their families. These pressures were more
visible in Transylvania, where the inquisitors often compelled peasants de-
pendent on Catholic lords to embrace the religion of their masters. Orthodox
clergymen were imprisoned or expelled from their villages manu militari, no-
tably in the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century. In Wallachia and
Moldavia, Catholic preachers had complete freedom of action among fellow
Catholics, but they were officially and fully prohibited from proselytizing to
the orthodox. What is more, Moldavia had welcomed a number of heretics,
Hussites and others, originally from Hungary and Bohemia, who found in this
land of asylum the freedom of conscience and religion which their homeland
denied them. The situation must have been similar in Wallachia, but we have
no detailed evidence on the matter. The kings of Hungary and Poland, for their
part, set themselves up as protectors of Romanian Catholics, and every conflict
or tension with the Wallachian and Moldavian princes had repercussions at
the religious level. One can therefore see in Dracula’s persecutions of Catholic
monks a reflection of his bad relations with Hungary and Transylvania at one
point or another in his reign.
Let’s remember that Wallachia, like Moldavia, had a Catholic hierarchy
since the second half of the fourteenth century. The bishopric of Curtea de
Argeș was founded in 1381, and its first incumbents were Dominicans and
Franciscans. In Vlad’s time, the Catholic bishops of Argeș—first a certain Paul
(ca. 1452–1458), and following his death the Dominican Jacob Richer (1458–
1466)—could oversee their parishioners in complete tranquility. The Catholics
of Câmpulung had a parish church since the last quarter of the thirteenth cen-
tury and a monastery dedicated to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. It was the same
in Târgoviște, where a parish church existed since at least 1417 and a Franciscan
convent was constructed shortly after 1440. Other Catholic communities, gen-
erally Hungarians and Saxons originating from Transylvania, lived in the cities
of Râmnicu Vâlcea and Brăila. Their status in the country was that of a toler-
ated minority, practicing a religion which was equally tolerated. Towards the
214 CHAPTER 7

heterodox (which includes the Jews and the Armenians), the Romanians ad-
opted a policy of what the Romanian historian Șerban Papacostea terms “hos-
tile tolerance.” We could just as well call it “soft apartheid,” and it was similar to
how the dhimmi populations were treated in the Ottoman Empire.
Dracula persecuted the Turks, his political opponents, Catholics and also
poor people and beggars in Wallachia, who were condemned to be burned
at the stake, as all the pamphlet accounts record. The GDW 1463 version gives
a figure of 200 victims, without further commentary. Michael Beheim, who
speaks of 600 dead, puts an expression of disdain in Dracula’s mouth (“These
people have no value”),27 while the GDW 1488 pamphlet attributes to the prince
the cynical phrase “They were eating the people’s food for free and could not
repay it.”28
The Russian account (Skazanie o Drakule voevode [The Tale of Voievod
Dracula], Episode 5) depicts Dracula as more deeply moral, but its value as a
historical document is questionable. We’ll analyze this text subsequently, in-
cluding the significance of episodes such as this.
This burning of the poor raises another problem. According to the GDW
pamphlet printed 1488–1493 in Lübeck by Bartholomaeus Ghothan (figs. 9 and
10), these supplicants were “false beggars” (truggeleren), which radically modi-
fies the significance of the episode. Andrei Pippidi compares this episode with
a similar deed attributed to Ezzelino III da Romano, in an anecdote dating
around 1300. In the Italian account, the tyrant had provided new clothes to
some beggars, but they asked to have their old rags returned. On inspection
these were revealed to be full of gold and silver coins.29
We face a parallel problem in interpreting the episode of Dracula’s buried
treasure. Here he is alleged to have executed the workers engaged to carry
out this task. Scarlat Lambrino has plausibly suggested that underlying influ-
ences for this account are the legendary stories of the treasures of Decebalus,

27  Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula, translation here from Appendix, p. 341, l. 868. For the
original German with parallel English translation, see ed. and trans. McDonald, l. 868,
p. 223. For the original German with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu,
l. 868, pp. 144 [German], 145 [French].
28  G DW 1488, translation here from Appendix, p. 368, Episode 31. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1488, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 31, p. 166
[German], 167 [French].
29  A. Pippidi, “Originea posibilă a unei legende despre Vlad Ţepeș [The possible origin of
a legend about Vlad the Impaler],” Revista de istorie și teorie literară 39, nos. 3–4 (1991):
322–328.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 215

king of Dacia, and of the tomb (and treasure) of the Gothic king Alaric I of
Busento.30
The episode of the concubine who was believed to be pregnant, and whom
Vlad had disemboweled to “see where his fruit was,” recalls the murder of
Agrippina and Nero’s inspection of his mother’s dead body.31
Finally, the persecutions of the Gypsies (Episodes 18 and 32 in the GDW 1463
pamphlet; Episodes 16 and 26 in the GDW 1488 edition; lines 365–393 and 821–
860 in Michael Beheim’s poem) betray, beyond their sheer atrocity, Dracula’s
refusal to accept the privileges which emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg had
accorded this group of nomads.32
In 1543, Bonfini’s history of Hungary, Rerum Ungaricarum decades [Ten
Volumes on Hungarian Matters], was published in Basel, disseminating new
episodes of Dracula’s cruelties. Notable here is the description of tortures in-
flicted on Turkish prisoners of war, the soles of whose feet were coated with
salt, and then licked by goats until their tongues tore away the skin. So too is the
episode of the Florentine merchant, who, desiring to safeguard his money at
night, was ordered to leave it in the middle of the street, where nobody would
dare to steal it. Finally, a modification of an episode dealing with Italian am-
bassadors. After failing, in the prince’s presence, to remove the little caps they
wore beneath their hats, the former were nailed into their skulls. In Bonfini’s
version, the ambassadors were Turks.
Sebastian Münster (1489–1552) incorporated this passage in his famous
Universal Cosmography (Basle, 1544), of which numerous editions were pro-
duced, in Latin, German, Italian, French, English, and Czech. This work did
more for the diffusion of Dracula’s cruelties than all previous works. It facil­
itated the dissemination of both isolated episodes and small groups of stories

30  Scarlat Lambrino, “Râul Sargetias și tezaurele lui Decebal [The Sargetia river and the trea-
sures of Decebalus],” in Închinare lui Nicolae Iorga cu prilejul împlinirii vârstei de 60 de
ani [Collected essays in honor of Nicolae Iorga on his sixtieth birthday], ed. Constantin
Marinescu (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Institutului de istorie universală, 1931), 223–228; Herwig
Wolfram, new and rev. ed., History of the Goths (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1990), 173–174; Pippidi, op. cit. supra.
31  Episode 22 in GDW 1488. Cf. Harmening, Der Anfang von Dracula, 53: “Daß Nero seine
Mutter aufschneiden ließ, um zu sehen, ‘da er gelegen,’ wußte das ganze Mittelalter.” This
does not, however, derive from Suetonius’ “Life of Nero,” xxxiv.
32  Angus M. Fraser, The Gypsies, The Peoples of Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 63–65,
but with no reference to the GDW episode; Viorel Achim, Tiganii în istoria României
[Gypsies in the history of Romania], Colecţia “Biblioteca Enciclopedică de istorie a
României” (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedia, 1998), 45–46, citing a 1422 privilege for the
Transylvanian Gypsies, but making no connection with the GDW episode in question.
216 CHAPTER 7

for use by preachers and moralists throughout all of Europe. Thanks to, or
because of, Münster’s Universal Cosmography, the story of Dracula became a
universal theme.

Dracula “The Beloved”

In his own country and in Hungary, the personage of the Wallachian voievod
had another dimension, which ultimately dominated and became the politi-
cally correct “truth.” It all began in 1524, when a Ragusan patrician, Michael
Bocignoli (Bocinić), published an open letter to Gérard de Plaines, Seigneur de
la Roche, one of the secretaries of emperor Charles V. Bocignoli had stayed in
Wallachia sometime in the reign of Mihnea I (1508–1509, d. 1510), and his letter
was regarded as an overview of Wallachia’s history, and economic and military
resources, with a view to war against the Ottomans. Also, at Mihnea’s court, it
was considered the official view of the reign and personality of his father.
Bocignoli began the history of Wallachia with Dragulus (Dracula), “an
intelligent man and a great military expert.” He mentions the war against
Mehmed II, and the treason of the boyars (reguli, in Latin, literally “kinglets”),
who preferred peace with the Turks to the pursuit of hostilities. The subse-
quent princes, weakened by internal strife, had been incapable of maintaining
the independence of the country, which, in 1524, was “nearly subjugated by the
Turks.” The letter closes with a reference to prince Radu de la Afumaţi’s wars
against Süleyman the Magnificent in the years 1522–1523.33
This text is important because it erases any mention of Dracula’s cruel-
ties, and designates Dracula with the homophonous word “Dragulus,” which
effectively divests the prince’s name of a diabolic sense, and replaces it with
the reflex “dear, loved” (drag, in Romanian). This shift in meaning occurs in
other sixteenth century authors, and is well explained by Antun Vrančić (1504–
1573), a Hungarian dignitary of Dalmatian origin, who became archbishop of
Esztergom and primate of Hungary:

33  Republished in Veress, ed., Acta et epistolae, vol. 1, no. 96, pp. 129–132; Romanian transla-
tion with rich commentary in Holban, ed., Călători străini, vol. 1, 171–180. The Florentine
Antonmaria del Chiaro translated the text into Italian and included it in his Istoria delle
Moderne Rivoluzioni della Valachia, Con la Descrizione del Paese, Natura, Costumi, Riti e
Religione degli Abitanti; Annessavi la Tavola Topografica di quella Provincia, dove si vede
ciò, che èrstato nella Valachia agli Austriaci nel Congresso di Passarovitza (Venice: Per
Antonio Bortoli, 1718), 112–117.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 217

In our century those [people, i.e., the Dacians] are given another name,
because nearly all westerners call the Moldavians “Dani” and the
Wallachians “Draguli,” even if the Romanians don’t use these terms, be-
cause they call themselves Romanian. These names are not used by their
neighbors either. And only the literate would recognize them by hearsay.
It is believed that this name comes from the Turks and originates from
certain of their princes who were capable governors of the interior of
their country, and proved to be great and worthy of appreciation thanks
to their bravery outside the country. Thus, the glory of all their predeces-
sors has passed to them and their name has spread far and wide. The
Turks were the first to call them Draguli, in memory of the valiant prince
Dragula, then the name spread to Italy with the Italians who used it in
their writings [they knew no other], then other nations did likewise
[…] Dragula is the fond diminutive of Drago, which means “beloved”, or
Charulus in Latin.34

Dracula “the beloved” is indeed a baffling transformation, which would have

been disputed by the person concerned, devoted as he was to Seneca’s maxim
“Let them hate me as long as they fear me.” But even today, this bizarreness,
however unlikely it may seem, has its followers in Romania.
From the second half of the sixteenth century, Vlad rapidly sank into ob-
scurity in his own country. The Wallachian chroniclers barely mention him
and confuse him with other fifteenth century princes. His cruelties and mil-
itary feats are passed over in silence, and only the construction of Poienari
castle is credited to him. It wasn’t until 1804 that Dracula reemerged as a

34  
De situ Transylvaniae, Moldaviae et Transalpinae, ed. Salay, 126–127; Romanian translation
with commentary in Holban, ed., Călători străini, vol. 1, 399–400. The term “Draguli” for
“Vlachs” is first found in Raffaele Maffei, called Volterrano (1451–1522), Commentariorum
rerum urbanarum libri XXXVIII (Rome: Per Ioannem Besicken, 1506). We cite here the
Basel reprint of 1559, p. 184. A final echo of this confusion appears just before the French
Revolution in Jean-Louis Carra’s Histoire de la Moldavie et de la Valachie: Avec une disserta-
tion sur l’état actuel de ces deux provinces, new and corrected ed. (Neuchatel: Imprimerie
de la Société Typographique, 1781), 3: “Avant la conquête de l’empire grec par Mahomet II,
la Valachie et la Moldavie eurent un chef indépendant, appelé Dragul. Après la mort de
Dragul et l’extinction de sa famille qui régna fort peu de temps, la Valachie et la Moldavie
passèrent volontairement sous la domination de Corvin, roi de Hongrie, qui les proté-
gea contre les Turcs. [Before Mehmed II’s conquest of the Greek empire, Wallachia and
Moldavia had an independent ruler, called Dragul. After Dragul’s death, and the extinc-
tion of his family, which seldom ruled strongly, Wallachia and Moldavia voluntarily sub-
mitted to Corvinus, king of Hungary, who protected them against the Turks].”
218 CHAPTER 7

full-fledged historical figure. In that year, in Händel’s birthplace Halle, a History

of Wallachia and Moldavia appeared, in the collection Fortsetzungen der allge-
meinen Welthistorie, authored by Johann Christian von Engel (1770–1814).35 Von
Engel was a student of August Ludwig Schlözer, a pioneer in the modern criti-
cal study of Russian, east European, and southeast European history.
Using a rich array of archival documents, Von Engel aimed at providing a
comprehensive treatment of the history of Hungary, and neighboring Bulgaria,
Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Slavonia. He used, for the first time, the pam-
phlet History of Voievod Dracula as a historical source. The exemplar Von Engel
cited from was preserved in Count Ferenc Széchényi’s library, which became
the Hungarian National Library. It was the incunabulum printed in Lübeck by
Bartholomaeus Ghothan between 1488 and 1493, which Von Engel published
in its entirety, including a reproduction of the engraved portrait of Dracula
(fig. 10).
Von Engel reconstructed Dracula’s 1456–1462 and 1476 reigns based on the
Greek historian Chalkokondyles, the Saxon chronicles of Transylvania, and
the 1524 Bocignoli letter. But his chief source remained the 1488–1493 pam-
phlet. Thus the figure of Vlad rises forth, in studies utilizing Von Engel, as a “ty-
rant, even more cunning and crueler than [Mohammed II] himself,”36 and “the
greatest monster in nature, and the horror of humanity […], a tiger drenched
in blood.37 The latter quote is from Mihail Kogălniceanu (1817–1891), one of the
greatest Romanian historians of the nineteenth century, who knew the works
of Von Engel, Von Hammer-Purgstall, Fessler, Chalkokondyles, Bonfini, and Del
Chiaro—in short, the key sources available at the time in western languages.

35  As indicated above, Von Engel’s work was published as parts of a larger collection or
series, the full title of which is “Fortsetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie durch eine
Gesellschaft von Gelehrten in Teutschland und Engeland ausgefertigt.” Its German title
is Geschichte der Moldau und Walachey: Nebst der historischen und statistischen Literatur
beyder Länder, and it consists of two hefty volumes (the first comprising 382 pages, and
the second 362). These are designated as volume (Band) 3, sections (Abtheilungen)
1 and 2, of the collection’s part (Theil) 49, the theme (Inhalt) of which is “Geschichte
des Ungrischen Reichs und seiner Nebenländer.” On this, see Katalog der Bibliothek des
Reichstages: Zugangsverzeichniss, vol. 3 (Berlin: E. Lezius & Co., 1901), 455.
36  Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, Grossentheils
aus bisher unbenützten Handschriften und Archiven, vol. 2, Von der Eroberung
Constantinopels bis zum Tode Selim’s I. 1453–1520 (Pest: C. A. Hartleben, 1828), 60.
37  Michel de Kogalnitchan [Mihail Kogălniceanu], Histoire de la Valachie, de la Moldavie et
des Valaques transdanubiens, vol. 1, Histoire de la Dacie, des Valaques transdanubiens et de
la Valachie. (1241–1792) (Berlin: B. Behr, 1837), 89–90.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 219

Discovery of the Russian Accounts of Dracula

It was only with the discovery of the Russian accounts that the image of the
Wallachian prince began to change, a shift linked also with the emergence
of the national Romanian state (1859) and the rewriting of the country’s his-
tory by a new generation of historians. In 1842, the Russian philologist A. H.
Vostokov published a large volume containing a description of the Slavonic
and Russian manuscripts in the Rumjantsev Museum in Saint Petersburg,
which are today part of the National Library of Russia collections. Manuscript
No. 358, dating to the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth cen-
tury, contains, among other items, a text entitled O mut’janskom voevode [On
the Muntenian Voievod], a collection of nineteen anecdotes about Dracula,
in which the anonymous author claims to have seen, “here in Buda,” one of
Dracula’s sons. Using this information, Vostokov correctly identified the author
of the text as Fyodor Kuritsyn, secretary of Grand Prince Ivan III of Moscow,
who was sent on an embassy to Hungary between 1482 and 1485.38 Vostokov,
however, was unaware of the German accounts, and his conclusions were con-
tested by other specialists, who drew attention to the resemblances between
the two clusters of texts and their interrelationships.
Half a century later, the Romanian Slavist Ioan Bogdan carefully com-
pared the Russian stories (of which he published four variants, namely that
of Vostokov and three much later versions) and the German pamphlets. He
concluded that the German stories had no influence on the Russian text, the
authorship of which he attributed to Fyodor Kuritsyn.39
The discovery in 1929 of the oldest version of the story, entitled Skazanie o
Drakule voevode [The Tale of Voievod Dracula], allowed specialists to place the
debate on surer ground. The date of this text—first completed on February
13, 1486, and then copied in 1490 by a certain Efrosin—argues strongly for
Kuritsyn’s authorship. He had returned from Hungary before August 1485, and
plausibly was the one who encountered Vlad’s son in Buda.40 This conclusion

38  Aleksandr Vostokov, Opisanie russkix i slovenskix rukopisej Rumjancovskogo Muzeuma

[Description of Russian and Slavic manuscripts in the Rumjancev Museum] (St.
Petersburg: Tip. Imperatorskoj Akad. Nauk, 1842), 508–513, esp. 512; Cazacu, L’histoire
du prince Dracula, 55 and 171.
39  Bogdan, Vlad Ţepeș și naraţiunile germane și ruseștĭ asupra lui.
40  A. D. Sedel’nikov, “Literaturnaja istorija povesti o Dracule [Literary History of the Tale
of Dracula],” Izvestija po russkomu jazyku i slovesnosti 2 (1929): 621–659; Lur’e, Povest’ o
Drakule, 42–43, 98, and 140–145.
220 CHAPTER 7

has been accepted by all western, Soviet and post-Soviet scholars in the field.41
Since 1939, however, some Romanian linguists and historians have not shared
this consensus.42 In any case, there currently is little doubt that The Tale of
Voevode Dracula is to be attributed to Fyodor Kuritsyn. In our view, an analysis
of its content and of the author’s personality, aside from the linguistic con-
siderations, constitutes the best argument for attributing the redaction of this
story to the learned Russian ambassador.
Between 1480 and 1501, Fyodor Kuritsyn was one of Ivan III’s close advisors
in matters of international policy, and effectively the creator of a Russian di-
plomacy. He played the role of minister of foreign affairs at a particularly im-
portant time in his country’s history. Throughout these decades the political
ideology of Muscovite autocracy crystallized, which permitted sovereigns to
justify and consolidate their domination over the ensemble of Russian lands.
One need simply glance at the map of medieval Russia to understand the chal-
lenges of this policy. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the principal-
ity of Moscow covered an area of less then 47,000 square kilometers. A century
and a half later, when Ivan III ascended the throne (1462), it had reached
430,000 square kilometers. Finally, in 1533, at the death of Ivan III’s son and
successor, Muscovy was a giant with 2.8 million square kilometers, occupying
all the ancient Russian principalities, with a few exceptions (Kiev, Volhynia,
Galicia, etc.) held by Poland.43 In size it exceeded all the great European king-
doms combined—France, Spain, England, Germany, and Italy—, although its
population was still rather modest, on the order of a few million. The transfor-
mation of this mosaic of lands and cities into an empire demanded a political
doctrine and forceful action, targeted at creating administrative cadres and
military power. Fyodor Kuritsyn and his brother Ivan Volk assisted in defin-
ing this political doctrine and in creating a body of functionaries, the princely
secretaries (d’jaki, in Russian). The expansion of this body reveals the increas-
ing power of the central administration and its omnipresence in the life of
Muscovy’s component provinces. The central pivot of this structure was the
Grand Prince, whose political status steadily grew throughout the last two

41  André Berelowitch, Matei Cazacu, and Pierre Gonneau, Histoire des slaves orientaux des
origines à 1689: Bibliographie des sources traduites en langues occidentales, Collection his-
torique de l’Institut d’études slaves, vol. 39 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 1998), 29; Striedter, “Die
Erzählung vom walachischen Vojevoden Drakula,” 398–427; Giraudo, Drakula.
42  See Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 56–68.
43  Hartmut Rüss, Herren und Diener: Die soziale und politische Mentalität des russischen
Adels, 9.–17. Jahrhundert, Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 17 (Cologne: Böhlau,
1994), 20, note 56.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 221

decades of the fifteenth, and all of the sixteenth century. Already since 1449,
the Grand Prince of Moscow was entitled prince “by the grace of God.” This
expression became standard under Ivan III, who declared, by proxy, to the am-
bassadors of Maximilian I in 1488:

Since the days of our ancestors, we have been sovereign in our own
land, and it is from God that we derive legitimacy for our ancestors and
ourselves.44

It was Fyodor Kuritsyn who pronounced these words in the name of the Grand
Prince, who must have played a part in the decision to have them spoken. And
we accept that it was Kuritsyn who convinced his master to adopt, in 1486,
the title “Lord” or “Master (gospodin) of All Russia,” affirming his ambition to
dominate the entirety of Russian territory.
The Grand Prince of Moscow’s pretentions were the result of favorable con-
ditions for affirming his role as leader of Orthodoxy to the outside world, and
uncontested sovereign within his own country. Three key events seem to have
been crucial for this process: the Council of Florence in 1439, which decreed
union between the Orthodox and Catholic churches; the fall of Constantinople
(1453); and the weakening of Mongol domination over Muscovite Russia after
the Great Standoff on the Ugra River (1480), when Ivan III’s troops faced the
army of Ahmed, Khan of the Golden Horde. The fall or eclipse of these two late
medieval powers—the one spiritual (Byzantium), and the other political (the
Golden Horde)—created a void which the Muscovite princes Vasily II (1425–
1462), Ivan III (1462–1505), and Vasily III (1505–1533) exploited to establish
authority, first of all over their subjects, and secondly over the other Russian
principalities. In so doing, the grand princes of Moscow intended to assume
the prestigious political heritage of Kiev, capital of medieval Russia, which had
fallen under Polish domination.
In their efforts to legitimize and strengthen the new political situation,
Ivan III and his successors enjoyed the support of several categories of Russian
society: the central administration and princely secretaries; the nobility of

44  Quoted in Vladimir Vodoff, “Naissance et essor du pouvoir des tsars de Moscou (1547–
1649),” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 89, nos. 3–4 (1975): 320–341, and also published as an
offprint (Paris: A. Pedone, 1975). The quotation is on p. 322 of the 1975 publication. See also
Franc̦ois-Xavier Coquin, “La philosophie de la fonction monarchique en Russie au XVIe
siècle,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 14, no. 3 (1973): 254; and Michael Cherniavsky,
“Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Mediaeval Political Theory,” Journal of the History
of Ideas 20 (1959): 459–476.
222 CHAPTER 7

service, endowed with fiefs (pomest’e) by the prince; the militant wing of the
church (or the “new Orthodoxy,” as one scholar puts it); and finally, a new
pressure group composed mainly of laymen, led by Fyodor Kuritsyn and his
brother, commonly known as “the Judaizers.” This pressure group supported
Muscovite autocracy, as well as Moscow’s claim to be heir of Kievan Russia. It
also espoused the principle that the church should not interfere in matters of
state, but should return to evangelical poverty.

The Tale of Voievod Dracula, A Political Manual Used by Ivan III

In 1482, Fyodor Kuritsyn was sent on an embassy to the court of Matthias

Corvinus in Hungary, to implement an alliance directed against Poland and
Lithuania.45 At the same time, he was commissioned to recruit German
and Italian specialists—architects, cannon founders, etc.—essential for car-
rying out the Grand Prince of Moscow’s civil and military projects.46 As of
February 5, 1483, Kuritsyn’s embassy in Hungary had completed its mission,
and was preparing to return to Russia. On that day, Matthias Corvinus wrote
to the Bistriţa burghers in northeastern Transylvania, asking them to welcome
the Russian ambassador and his party, and to conduct them to Stephen the
Great’s court in Moldavia, via the road leading through the Borgo Pass.47 Let’s
remember this name, since it will come up again in 1897, when Bram Stoker
selects this as his setting for Count Dracula’s castle!
Fyodor spent 1483 in Moldavia, at Suceava and elsewhere, and remained
there until the summer of the following year. He was waiting, in fact, for the
arrival of specialists recruited in Italy by another member of the embassy,
Manuel the Greek.48 Another reason, however, may explain Kuritsyn’s delay.
During the winter of 1482–1483, Helena, daughter of the prince of Moldavia,
had married Ivan III’s eldest son. This marriage was intended to seal a joint
alliance directed against Poland. Very plausibly, then, the Russian ambassador

45  Paul Karge, “Die ungarisch-russische Allianz von 1482–1490,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Geschichtswissenschaft 7 (1892): 326–333.
46  On this see Erik Amburger, Die Anwerbung ausländischer Fachkräfte für die Wirtschaft
Rußlands vom 15. Bis ins 19. Jahrhundert, Osteuropastudien der Hochschulen des Landes
Hessen, Reihe 1, Gießener Abhandlungen zur Agrar- und Wirtschaftsforschung des eu-
ropäischen Ostens, vol. 42 (Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1968).
47  Documente, vol. 15, pt. 1, no. CCXVII, p. 120.
48  See Ivan III’s June 1484 letter addressed to his envoy to the khan of Crimea, in Grosul et
al., eds., Istoričeskie svjazi narodov SSSR i Rumynii […] 1408–1632, 58–61.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 223

utilized his stay to collect information on this new ally and his country, on its
economic and military potential, and on the general political situation of the
Black Sea region which was shared by the Moldavians, Crimean Tatars, and,
since 1475, the Ottoman Turks.
At length, in August 1484, while they were awaiting their colleagues’ arriv-
al from Italy, Fyodor Kuritsyn and his companions were surprised at Cetatea
Albă, the Moldavian fortress at the mouth of the Nistru (Dniestr) on the Black
Sea, by an Ottoman army which laid siege to the city. On August 4, Cetatea
Albă surrendered to sultan Bayezid II and became Ottoman for more than
three centuries, under the name of Aqqerman, which is a direct translation
of Cetatea Albă, namely “white castle.” The Russian ambassadors were cap-
tured by the Ottomans, but were freed thanks to the intervention of Mengli I
Giray, the khan of Crimea. They then returned to Moscow in time to witness
the conquest of Tver, the most important Russian principality which had thus
far remained independent (August 21, 1485).49
During his stay in Buda, northern Transylvania, and Moldavia, Fedor
Kuritsyn collected nineteen anecdotes on Dracula, which he incorporated in
his text. The Russian ambassador doubtless knew the German GDW in its 1463
version, but he formed his own opinion regarding the prince, from testimonies
of people who had known him. In the epic of Vlad the Impaler, whom he con-
tinually calls Dracula, Kuritsyn recognized a goodly number of his own prince
Ivan III’s preoccupations, occasionally comparable situations, and answers to
questions he had posed. It thus seems probable that Kuritsyn presented this
text to Ivan III not only to provide him with edifying reading, but to slip in
precepts of government appropriate for application in the Russia of his times.
A new and important concept, here, is the equality of all subjects before the
law. According to Kuritsyn, this was Vlad the Impaler’s supreme principle of
government:

[Dracula] hated evil in his country so much that whoever committed a

misdeed—whether it was theft, armed robbery, lying, or injustice—had
no chance of remaining alive. No one—[no matter] whether he was a
great boyar, priest, monk, commoner, or very wealthy man—could buy
his life.50

49  See Ivan III’s letter to Mengli I Giray, in Lur’e, Povest’ o Drakule, 42–43.
50  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 359, Episode 4. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 4,
pp. 182 [Russian]/183 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula
(1994), Episode 4, p. 201.
224 CHAPTER 7

The evolution of a system of punishments—from a simple phase of “guilty-

victim,” to a complex, modern phase of “guilty-victim-justice”—as illustrat-
ed here by the Wallachian prince, appears a few years later in the Sudebnik
[Law Code], a 1497 collection of Muscovite laws, in which production Fyodor
Kuritsyn surely would have played an active role.51 Indeed, all scholars who
have studied the Sudebnik have been struck by its great severity in relation
to previous legislation, in particular its propensity for inflicting capital pun-
ishment or mutilation for numerous punishable offenses which heretofore
only merited fines. Thus the prince and his judicial apparatus tolerated no
private understanding among parties. It was the prerogative of centralized
power to judge and severely punish anyone found guilty.52 Nevertheless, civil
tribunals did not have the authority to judge in religious matters, even though
the Sudebnik stipulates penalties for sacrilege. Only bishops could adjudicate
monks, and monastic affairs. Here, Ivan III didn’t entirely follow Dracula’s
example.
On the other hand, in analyzing Vlad’s relations with the Turks in the
Russian text, one can’t help but be struck by the similarities with Ivan III’s
policy towards the Tatars of the Golden Horde.
After Hadji Giray, Khan of the Crimea, died in 1466, the political constella-
tion of eastern Europe was reconfigured anew. King Casimir IV of Poland, vic-
tor in his thirteen year war against the Teutonic Knights, abandoned his Tatar
alliance and attempted a rapprochement with the Golden Horde of the Volga,
where Khan Ahmed had established himself, aimed against Moscow. The lat-
ter, in turn, was seeking an alliance with the new Crimean khan, Mengli I Giray.
After the fall of Caffa under the blows of Bayezid II and Mengli I Giray’s flight
to Istanbul, Ahmed Khan turned his attention to Moscow. On July 11, 1476, his
envoys enjoined the Muscovite prince, in no uncertain terms, to bring the trib-
ute personally to the khan, at his residence at Saray on the Volga. Ivan III re-
fused to accede to their demand and awaited a response, returning the Tartar
ambassadors safe and sound, accompanied by his envoy, Matvej Bestužev.

51  Lev V. Cherepnin, Russkie feodal’nye arxivy XIV–XV vekov, vol. 2 (Moscow: Izdatelstvo
Akademii nauk SSSR, 1951), 310–314.
52  Marc Szeftel, “Le ‘Justicier’ (Sudebnik) du Tsar Ivan III (1497),” Revue historique du droit
franc̦aise et étranger 4 (1956): 531–568; Horace W. Dewey, “The 1497 Sudebnik—Muscovite
Russia’s First National Law Code,” The American Slavic and East European Review 15,
no. 3 (1956): 325–338; Gianfranco Giraudo, “L’età di Ivan III,” Rivista storica italiana 84
(1972): 404–406; Daniel H. Kaiser, The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1980), 77, 87, 90–93.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 225

In our opinion, it is with reference to this event that Fyodor Kuritsyn intro-
duced into his text on Dracula the episodes concerning the manner in which
Vlad treated the insolent ambassadors, and the humiliating demands for trib-
ute (Episodes nos. 1 and 3, and perhaps also 11 and 12). It seems perfectly ap-
parent that the Turks, in these episodes, play the same role as do the Tatars of
the Golden Horde vis-à-vis Moscow. Moreover, according to the Polish histo-
rian Maciej Stryjkowski, the ceremony of welcoming the Tatar ambassadors
at Moscow required the grand prince and his boyars to adopt an extremely
humiliating posture. While the khan’s letter was read, they had to listen on
bended knee, placing at the ambassador’s feet an exquisite sable fur. This the
Tatar envoy would then receive, along with other gifts.53
The new reversal of alliances which led, in 1479–1480, to the rapprochement
between Mengli I Giray and Ivan III, similarly triggered a response from the
Golden Horde and Lithuania in spring 1480. Commanded by Ahmed Khan
in person, the Tatar army positioned itself south of the river Oka, opposite
the Ivan III’s troops. However, neither of the two adversaries dared to cross the
river, and, after a certain time, the grand prince fled to Borovsk. Despite
the panic reigning in the Russian camp, Ahmed Khan didn’t attack. He was
probably awaiting Polish reinforcements. From his refuge in Borovsk, Ivan III
opened negotiations with the Tatars, returning momentarily to Moscow—
which he immediately abandoned—and then sent the Tatar khan gifts equiva-
lent to tribute. In November 1480, Ahmed Khan ordered retreat, having waited
in vain for the Polish king’s support. As for Ivan III, he returned to Moscow
where he was celebrated as a victor.54 The hesitant attitude of the Russian
grand prince must have displeased many, and Kuritsyn apparently wasn’t an
exception. Mehmed II’s 1462 campaign in Wallachia could certainly have pro-
vided him an interesting comparison with Moscow’s situation in 1480, and not
to the Russian prince’s advantage (Episode nos. 2, 3, 17, 18). Meanwhile, Ivan III
had promised to pay the Tatar tribute, but Ahmed Khan’s death on January 6,
1481 spared him this humiliation. The Golden Horde broke up, and the Prince
of Moscow was acclaimed as “liberator” of the Tartar yoke. Prudently, in 1481,

53  Bertold Spuler, Die Goldene Horde: Die Mongolen in Russland, 1223–1502, 2nd expanded ed.
(Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1965), 360; Matei Cazacu, “À propos du récit russe Skazanie
o Drakula voevode,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 15, nos. 3–4 (1974): 294 and note
62, where—instead of Jan Długosz—the name of the historian is correctly identified
as Maciej (Mattthew) Stryjkowski, whose Kronika polska, litewska, żmudzka i wszystkiéj
Rusi [Chronicle of Poland, Lithuania, Samogitia and All Rus’], was published in 1582 in
Königsberg.
54  Spuler, Die Goldene Horde, 181–184.
226 CHAPTER 7

Ivan III concluded treaties with the other Russian princes whereby Moscow
became solely responsible for conveying the tribute owed by the Russian lands
to the Tatars. In keeping this tribute payment to himself, Ivan III legitimized
a posteriori his claim to be lord of all Russia.
Another of Kuritsyn’s concerns reflected in the Skazanie o Drakule voevode,
but absent in the German versions, relates to the ceremonial for welcom-
ing foreign ambassadors at the Wallachian prince’s court. This is evident in
Skazanie Episodes nos. 1, 11, and especially 12:

Dracula had the following habit. Whenever an ambassador from the

emperor [Sultan] or the king [of Hungary] arrived who was not attired
with distinction, and did not know how to respond to [Dracula’s] tortu-
ous questions, he had him impaled, saying: “I am not the one responsible
for your death, but your sovereign or yourself. Do not speak ill of me. If
your sovereign, knowing that you have few brains and are without knowl-
edge, sent you to me—a very wise sovereign—then it is your lord who
has killed you. However if you have dared to come here yourself, without
being instructed, then you have killed yourself.” For such an ambassador
he had a tall stake, fully gilded, set up and [he was] fixed upon it. And to
the sovereign of this ambassador he would write, among other things,
these words: “No longer send, as envoy to a wise sovereign, a feeble-mind-
ed and ignorant man.”55

In Episode 11, Dracula, after asking an ambassador of Matthias Corvinus some

probing questions, received the following response, which conformed with the
Wallachian prince’s views:

Sire, if I have committed a crime which merits death, do what seems

good to you, because you are an impartial judge and it is not you who will
be responsible for my death, but me alone.56

55  
Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 361, Episode 12. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 12,
pp. 198 [Russian]/199 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula,
Episode 12, p. 205.
56  
Skazanie o Draule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 361, Episode 11. For the orig-
inal Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 11, pp. 196
[Russian]/197 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, in his and Florescu’s In Search
of Dracula, Episode 11, p. 204.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 227

Note that in the Russian text, the Romanian prince is regularly given the title
“sovereign” (gosudar’), which in Russian designates a prince firmly aware that
he is no one’s vassal. Vlad the Impaler’s real situation, however, as tributary to
the Turks and vassal of the Hungarian king, emerges very clearly from the terms
he uses in his correspondence with king Ladislas the Posthumous and later
Matthias Corvinus: “our most gracious lord” (dominus noster graciosissimus),
or “our gracious lord” (domine noster graciose).57 Furthermore, Vlad and the
other Romanian princes never adopted the Russian title gosudar’, but only that
of voievod and gospodar” (or gospodin”), which translates the Latin dominus
(lord, in Romanian domn).58 Note, however, that the Wallachian princes some-
times adopted the title samodr”žavnyi gospodin” (domn singur stăpânitor), a
translation of the Greek autokrator. The sole exception in the fifteenth century
was Vlad the Impaler, who never called himself by this title.
Another episode of the Russian account bearing Kuritsyn’s stamp is
Episode 5, in which the ill and beggars are condemned to be burned at the
stake. In the German texts, the conclusion of this episode is rather simplis-
tic, whereas the Russian account contains a justification attributed to Dracula
which is worth considering:

Know that I have done this so that, first of all, they will no longer be a
burden for others, and that there shall be no more poor in my country,
and all will be rich. Second, I have delivered them [from this life] so they
will no longer suffer poverty in this world, or any other sort of malady.59

In this second justification of the massacre of the poor, one sees the prince’s
contention that he can interpret the gospels better than the church itself. And
instead of giving alms to the miserable poor, he kills them so as to ensure them

57  Bogdan, ed., Documente privitoare, no. CCLXII, pp. 316–317; Bogdan, Vlad Ţepeș și
naraţiunile, 76.
58  Damian P. Bogdan, “Diplomatica slavo-română [Slavo-Romanian diplomatics],” in
Documente privind istoria României: Introducere [Documents concerning Romanian his-
tory: introduction], eds. Damian P. Bogdan et al., vol. 2 (Bucharest: Editura Academiei
Republicii Populare Române, 1956), 77–84 (“Intitulaţia”); Emil Vîrtosu, Titulatura dom-
nilor și asocierea la domnie în Ţara Românească și Moldova până în secolul al XVI-lea
[The titulature of princes and association to the throne in Wallachia and Moldavia to the
sixteenth century], Biblioteca istorică, vol. 9 (Bucharest: Academiei Republicii Populare
Romîne, 1960), 197–215.
59  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 359, Episode 5. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 5,
pp. 184 [Russian]/185 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula
(1994), Episode 5, p. 202.
228 CHAPTER 7

a better existence in the hereafter.60 And this was probably Kuritsyn’s view on
the matter, in this way denying the church one of its chief justifications for
acquiring wealth.
This pretention of an absolute monarch to bypass the support of the church
is very clear in Episode 6 of the Russian account, the protagonists of which
are two Catholic monks who have come seeking alms in Wallachia. Dracula
invites them to court, shows them some impaled people, and asks them if they
believe he was right in acting in this way. In the German GDW (notably the 1488
Nuremberg version), the responses of the two monks are essentially a lesson in
morality. The first monk states: “People say everything good about you and that
you are a very pious lord, [and] this I also say of you.” While the second, con-
vinced that he was going to perish under any circumstances, told him the truth:
“You are the greatest tyrant one could find in the world, and I’ve met nobody
who ever says good of you, and this you have well proven.” Dracula rewarded
the second monk for his sincerity, and punished the hypocritical monk.61
In the Russian version, which was surely “worked over” by Kuritsyn, the epi-
sode assumes a political coloring. The first monk’s response reflects the reac-
tion of the early Church:

No, Lord, you have acted badly, because you punish without mercy.
It becomes a master to show mercy, and those you have impaled are
martyrs.

On the other hand, the second monk’s answer conforms to the doctrine of
the Judaizers and thus of absolute monarchy:

You have been placed here by God as a sovereign to punish those who
have done evil and to reward those who have done good. And those
who have done evil have received what they deserve.62

60  Fairy von Lilienfeld, “Die ‘Häresie’ des Fedor Kuricyn,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen
Geschichte 24 (1978): 39–64.
61  G DW 1488, translation here from Appendix, p. 368, Episode 29. For the original German
with facing French translation, see GDW 1488, ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 29, pp. 164
[German]/165 [French].
62   Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 359, Episode 6. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 6,
pp. 186 [Russian]/187 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula
(1994), Episode 6, p. 202.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 229

The prince’s reward and admiration go to the monk who places raison
d’état and the sovereign’s justice above considerations of Christian morality,
in accord with the words of St. Peter:

For the sake of the Lord, accept the authority of every social institution:
the emperor, as the supreme authority, and the governors as commis-
sioned by him to punish criminals and praise good citizenship.63

And the first monk evokes the following reflection from Dracula, which is so
very reminiscent of Machiavelli:

Why have you left your monastery and your cell and come to the courts
of great sovereigns, being so ignorant? You come to tell me that these
people are martyrs; I likewise wish to make you a martyr, so you will be a
martyr at their sides.64

In so modifying the sense of this episode, as we find it in the German pam-

phlets, Fyodor Kuritsyn wanted to underscore a religious foundation of
absolute power, as well as his opinion on the appropriateness of church par-
ticipation in state affairs. We may conclude, here, that he was not entirely hos-
tile to the proposition, as long as it involves men who are prepared to judge the
sovereign’s actions from the perspective of the public good embodied by
the prince. His point of view would be adopted by Ivan the Terrible,65 who in
1565 wrote the following to prince Andrew Kurbsky:

It is one thing to save one’s own soul, but it is another to have the care
of many souls and bodies: it is one thing to abide in fasting; it is another
to live in communal life. Spiritual authority is one thing—the rule of a
tsar is another. To abide in fasting is like being a lamb which offers re-
sistance to naught or “the fowl[s] of the air which sow not neither do

63  1 Peter 2:13–15 (The Jerusalem Bible, gen. ed. Jones, 402–403).
64  Skazanie o Dracule voevode, translation here from Appendix, p. 359, Episode 6. For the
original Russian with facing French translation, see ed. and trans. Cazacu, Episode 6,
pp. 186 [Russian]/187 [French]. Cf. McNally’s English translation, In Search of Dracula
(1994), Episode 6, p. 202. [or refer back to note 59?].
65  Bjarne Nørretranders, The Shaping of Czardom under Ivan Groznyj (Copenhagen:
Munksgaard, 1964), 44ff.; Vladimir Vodoff, “L’Église et le pouvoir monarchique en Russie
de 1503 à 1568,” in Théorie et pratique politiques à la Renaissance: XVII e colloque interna-
tional de Tours [1974], De Pétrarque à Descartes, vol. 34 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1977), 75–87.
230 CHAPTER 7

they reap, nor gather into barns.” But in the communal life, even if one
has renounced the world, one still has regulations and cares, and like-
wise punishments too. For if one does not heed these things, then will
the communal life be destroyed. For spiritual authority, because of the
blessed power within it, calls for a mighty suppression of the tongue, of
glory, of honour, of adornment, of supremacy, such things as are unbe-
fitting for monks; but the rule of a tsar, because of the folly of the most
wicked and cunning men, [calls for] fear and suppression and bridling
and extreme suppression. Consider then the difference between the
life of fasting and the coenobitic, between priesthood and royal power.
And is this befitting for a tsar: when he is struck on the cheek, for him to
turn the other cheek? Is this then the supreme commandment? For how
shall a tsar rule his kingdom if he himself be without honour? Yet this is
befitting for priests—consider then in this light the difference between
priesthood and royal power!66

The message Kuritsyn transmitted via the Skazanie o Drakule voevode reson­
ated down to the times of Ivan the Terrible (1538–1584), a tsar autocrat par
excellance, exalted by some as the principal founder of the Russian Empire
(with Stalin in last place), and scorned by others as a bloody tyrant in the image
of Dracula. The tsar had surely read the Skazanie o Drakule voevode, and some
actions attributed to him were in reality the deeds of the Wallachian voievod:
The inspection of soldiers after a battle in 1572, to see who was wounded
in the back, thus proving cowardice in combat (Episode 2);67 punishment of
the Turkish ambassadors by nailing their turbans to their heads (Episode 1);68
and burning of the poor in Aleksandrova Sloboda during the famine of 1575
(Episode 5).69

66  The Correspondence between Prince A. M. Kurbsky and Tsar Ivan IV of Russia 1564–1579,
edited with translation and notes by John L. I. Fennell (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1963), 59 (Russian)/59 (English).
67  Heinrich von Staden, Aufzeichnungen über den Moskauer Staat: Nach der Handschrift
des preussischen Staatsarchivs in Hannover, ed. Fritz Epstein, Hamburgische Universität,
Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde, vol. 34, Series A: Rechts- und
Staatswissenschaften, vol. 5 (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter & Co., 1930), 81. For
an English translation, see The Land and Government of Muscovy: A Sixteenth-Century
Account, ed. and trans. Thomas Esper (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967); Cazacu,
L’histoire du prince Dracula, 63–64 and note 203bis.
68  Lur’e, Povest’ o Drakule, 66; Giraudo, Drakula, 114–117.
69  Maureen Perrie, The Image of Ivan the Terrible in Russian Folklore, Cambridge studies in
oral and literature culture, vol. 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 96–101,
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 231

Without going as far as Donald W. Treadgold, who saw in the Russian text
an attempt by Kuritsyn to “construct a new official ideology of the autocratic
state,”70 we should consider another work by the Russian Judaizers—namely
Pseudo-Aristotle’s Secretum secretorum, which Kuritsyn and his friends trans-
lated from Hebrew to Russian (Tajnaja tajnych). It’s been established that the
translator considerably enriched the Russian version with new passages em-
phasizing, in particular, the behavior of the prince towards his subjects and the
nobility, the appropriate treatment of ambassadors, and the important role of
the princely secretary, etc.71
Both the Skazanie o Drakule voevode and the Tajnaja tajnych are remarkable
for envisioning the art of governing independent of any ecclesiastical influ-
ence, or religious consideration. Governing is a secular science (or art), and the
prince, in the view of our authors, can dispense with ecclesiastical support and
instead appeal to other dedicated and tested partners. This totally new concep-
tion in medieval Russian literature can be attributed to Fyodor Kuritsyn.
Although thus far we’ve encountered in sixteenth century Russia an atti-
tude rather favorable to the ideas contained in the Skazanie o Drakule voevode,
let’s not ignore a work which vigorously contests them. This is the Prosvetitel’
[Illuminator] of Joseph of Volokolamsk, written shortly before 1504, the sev-
enth chapter of which contains the following fragment concerning an evil
prince:

The king is the servant of God to punish and to pardon men. But if the
king who rules men is himself ruled by evil passions and sins, such as ra-
pacity and violence, falsehood and deceit, pride and ambition, and worst
of all, unbelief and blasphemy, such a king is not a servant of God but of

discussing the story of the building of the Vologda city walls by citizens accused of not
having welcomed the tsar at Easter with red eggs, which recalls the story of the construc-
tion of castle Poienari by the burghers of Târgoviște. See also Andreas Kappeler, Ivan
Groznyj im Spiegel der ausländischen Druckschriften seiner Zeit: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
des westlichen Russlandbildes, Geist und Werk der Zeiten, vol. 33 (Bern: H. Lang, 1972).
70  Donald W. Treadgold, The West in Russia and China: Religious and Secular Thought in
Modern Times, vol. 1, Russia 1472–1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 11.
71  Mario Grignaschi, “L’Origine et les métamorphoses du ‘Sirr al-‘asrâr’ (Secretum secreto-
rum),” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 43 (1976): 67–78; Russell
Zguta, “The ‘Aristotelevy vrata’ as a Reflection of Judaizer Political Ideology,” Jahrbücher
für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, 26, no. 1 (1978): 1–10. For an English translation of
the Tajnaja tajnych, see W. F. Ryan, “Alchemy, Magic, Poisons, and the Virtues of Stones
in Old Russian Secretum Secretorum,” Ambix 37, pt. 1 (1990): 46–54, with translation on
pp. 49–50.
232 CHAPTER 7

Satan, not a king but an oppressor [mucitel’, which can also mean “execu-
tioner”]. Because of his duplicity Our Lord Jesus Christ will not call such a
ruler king, but a fox … And also says the Apostle “the vain king will perish,
for his way is darkness.”72

One cannot help but be struck by the obvious relationship between this text
and the Skazanie o Drakule voevode vis-à-vis Dracula. His name, of course, sig-
nals a pun on the word “devil,” and the epithet mucitel’ (tyrant, but also execu-
tioner) recalls the episode of the two Catholic monks in the Skazanie (no. 6),
and generally refers to tyrants persecuting Christians. The other defects of the
evil tsar delineated in the Illuminator are also applicable to Vlad the Impaler,
as they appear throughout the Skazanie. Joseph understood the ambiguous
message conveyed by the Skazanie. On the one hand it depicts the great sov-
ereign, who puts the nobility in its place, defends the land against the Turks,
persecutes Catholic monks, punishes insolent ambassadors, and so on. On the
other hand, it conveys the negative images, which incidentally Kuritsyn did
not choose to suppress, namely Vlad’s atrocities, his conversion to Catholicism
during his imprisonment, and his contempt for clerics mingling in affairs of
state. And it’s here that Joseph quotes Saint Peter on the king (here, tsar) as
servant of God. When steeped in sin, and guilty of unbelief and impiety, the
sovereign is no longer the servant of God, but of the devil. We find this theme
in Byzantine literature since the age of Justinian I.73 The warning is clear.

72  Translation by Marc Raeff, “An Early Theorist of Absolutism: Joseph of Volokolamsk,” The
American Slavic and East European Review 8, no. 2 (1949): 86. For the original Russian,
see Iosif Volotskii, Prosvetitel’, ili obličenie eresi židovstvuiuščix [The illuminator, or un-
masking of the heresy of the Judaizers], 3rd ed. (Kazan: Tipografia Imperatorskogo
universiteta, 1896), 286–288. For discussion of this passage, in addition to Raeff, see
Hans-Dieter Döpmann, Der Einfluss der Kirche auf die moskowitische Staatsidee: Staats-
und Gesellschaftsdenken bei Josif Volockij, Nil Sorskij und Vassian Patrikeev, Quellen
und Untersuchungen zur Konfessionskunde der Orthodoxie (Berlin: Evangelische
Verlagsanstalt, 1967), 73ff.; Coquin, “La philosophie de la fonction monarchique,” 258, but
whose translation “[the wicked king] is a devil” should be corrected to “[the wicked king]
is a servant of the devil;” and Donald Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural
Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998), 205–206ff. Also useful here is Cornelia Soldat’s “The Limits of Muscovite Autocracy:
The Relations between the Grand Prince and the boyars in the light of Iosif Volotskii’s
Prosvetitel’,” Cahiers du Monde russe 46, nos. 1–2 (2005): 265–276.
73  Berthold Rubin, “Der Fürst der Dämonen: Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation von Prokops
Anekdota,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 44 (1951): 469–481, and also his “Zur Kaiserkritik
Ostroms,” Studi bizantini e neoellenici 7 (1953): 453–462. Also fundamental is Franz H.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 233

Without the control of the church, the tsar slips into tyranny, unbelief, and
impiety—mortal sins for a Christian.
This charge against Kuritsyn and his model prince arrived after the leader
of the Judaizers had died, and the Synod of 1504 had condemned their beliefs
as heresy, and decreed that adherents be burned at the stake or imprisoned.
An air of mystery surrounds Fyodor Kuritsn’s end. Jakov S. Lur’e has already
explored the problem of his complete disappearance after 1501, concluding
that, in gratitude for his past services, the grand prince allowed Kuritsyn to
retire to a convent far from the capital to avoid being condemned as a heretic.74
This hypothesis accounts for the complete absence of information on Kuritsyn
during the Synod and trial of 1504. However, in a series of remarkable studies,
Professor Frank Kämpfer has advanced a new hypothesis regarding Kuritsyn’s
fate, according to which he withdrew to a monastery at Pskov, on the Polish-
Lithuanian border.75

Tinnefeld, Kategorien der Kaiserkritik in der byzantinischen Historiographie von Prokop bis
Niketas Choniates (Munich: W. Fink, 1971).
74  Lur’e, Povest’ o Drakule, 58. However, in May 1503, one of his undersecretaries (pod’jačij)
departed on an embassy to Lithuania (cf. Sbornik imperatorskago russkago istoričeskago
obščestva 35 [1882]: 413).
75  There, following an old monastic custom, he would have taken the name Philotheus
(Filofej), since in Russian Fyodor (Theodore) and Filofej (Philotheus) begin with the
same letter. In short, Fyodor (Theodore) Kuritsyn would be the same person as the monk
Philotheus (Filofej), of the Yeleazarov Monastery north of Pskov, and author of the cel-
ebrated theory of “Moscow—the Third Rome.” See Frank Kämpfer, “Beobachtungen zu
den Sendschreiben Filofejs,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, 18, no. 1
(1970): 1–46, and also his “Autor und Entstehungszeit der Lehre ‘Moskau das Dritte Rom,’ ”
in Da Roma alla Terza Roma: L’idea di Roma a Mosca secoli XV–XVI. IX seminario inter-
nazionale di studi storici. Roma, Campidoglio 21–22 aprile 1989. Relazioni e comunicazioni,
vol. 1 (Rome, 1989), 63–83. Kämpfer’s arguments are ingenious and convincing, as long
as we accept the idea that the former leader of the Judaizers had become an adherent
of those defending ecclesiastical ownership of land, thus of Joseph Volokolamsk. This
would signify quite an about-face from his previous convictions. But is such a thing pos-
sible? We believe so, despite the reservations of certain specialists on the dating and even
authorship of letters attributed to Philotheus of Pskov. See in particular A. L. Goldberg,
“Tri ‘poslanija Filofeja’ (Opyt tekstologičeskogo analiza) [Three ‘Letters of Philotheus’
(an attempt at textual analysis)],” Trudy otdela drevnerusskoj literatury 29 (1974): 68–97,
and also his “Ideja ‘Moskva–Tretij Rim’ v cikle sočinenij pervoj poloviny XVI v. [The idea
of ‘Moscow–Third Rome’ in the cycle of collections of the first half of the 16th centu-
ry],” Trudy otdela drevnerusskoj literatury 37 (1983): 139–149. Goldberg dates the letter to
Vasily III to the years 1540–1550. Also see Nina V. Sinitsyna’s discussion and theories in
Tretii Rim: Istoki i evoljucija russkoj srednevekovoj koncepcii. XV–XVI vv. [Third Rome:
sources and evolution of the medieval Russian concept. 15th–16th centuries] (Moscow:
234 CHAPTER 7

Though never printed, the Skazanie o Drakule voevode was widely circulated
in Russia. From 1490 to the end of the eighteenth century, some twenty-eight
manuscripts are known to have been copied. The Skazanie also circulated
in anthologies, alongside popular works such as the Romance of Alexander
the Great, historical accounts, and apocryphal legends of the Old and New
Testament.76 Certain episodes have even been attributed to Ivan the Terrible.
This attests to their popularity, and also the slippage of the protagonist
and his historic deeds into a more or less mythical age. The proper names and
specific dates in the original text disappear, the episodes receive titles—“On
Women,” “On Monks”—, and the principal hero is reduced to a malicious
shadow such as “the Wallachian voievod of Greek faith,” or sometimes even
the “Greek voievod.” The result, in short, as with the contemporary German
pamphlets, is an exemplum meant to stimulate meditation on tyrants and their
cruel excesses.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles

In his own lifetime, the tales about Dracula circulated across the Danube, via
merchants, monks, and soldiers. His name and deeds gained wider promi-
nence from 1462, the year of his confrontation with sultan Mehmed II. We
can measure the impact of the Wallachian prince’s actions on the Ottoman
Empire, and on the Christian possessions of the Mediterranean, from various
sources—such as the English pilgrim William Wey, who recorded, on the island
of Rhodes, the echoes of the war in Wallachia; the Venetian Domenico Balbi’s
report; and an Albanian slave’s account of the sultan’s retreat. The prominence
of the narrative on Mehmed II’s Wallachian campaign in the accounts of the
post-Byzantine and Ottoman historians additionally attests to the Balkan
world’s great interest in our hero. It was, after all, a campaign directed by the
sultan himself, at the head of the largest army assembled since the conquest
of Constantinople.
Only one author took the trouble to compose a coherent and richly detailed
account of Dracula’s deeds, and to reflect on the finality of the vovoide’s acts,
and the means he used to attain his goals.
We’ve seen above how Matthias Corvinus’ court and Fyodor Kuritsyn ex­
ploited Dracula’s personality and actions respectively to justify a political

Izdatelstvo “Indrik,” 1998), 133–173. For arguments supporting the Kuritsyn-Philotheus

identity, see Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 78–81.
76  For descriptions and editions see Lur’e, Povest’ o Drakule, 86–107.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 235

decision, and supply ideological arguments to establish securely the Russian

autocracy embodied in Ivan III. An analogous project, we shall argue, was
pursued by the Greek historian Laonikos (an anagram of Nikolaos, Nikolas)
Chalkokondyles (1423/1430–after 1470), author of the important work
᾽Αποδείξεις ῾Ιστοριῶν (Apodeixeis Ηistoriōn, known in Latin as Historiarum
demonstrationes expuneri istorice, or “Historical Presentations”).77
Very little is known about his life. Son of a prominent Athenian, he was re-
lated to the wife of the duke of Athens and Thebes, Antonio Acciaiuoli (1405–
1435). On the latter’s death, Laonikos left his birthplace and joined his family in
Mistra, at the court of the last despots of the imperial family of the Palaiologoi,
where he remained another twenty years. He returned to Athens following the
Ottoman conquest in 1458. Subsequently, however, we lose all trace of him.
Jenő Darkó, who produced a critical edition of the history, conjectures that our
historian spent the rest of his life (down to 1487–1490) in Crete. Vasile Grecu
proved that Chalkokondyles either died or stopped writing around 1470.
Extending through ten books, Chalkokondyles’ work describes the decline
of the Byzantines and the expansion of Ottoman power between the years 1298
and 1463, where the narrative of events abruptly ends. The work expresses an
entirely new perspective in Byzantine and post-Byzantine historiography, but
seems unfinished. The anachronisms, the allusions to events not found in the
text, an often disjointed and obscure style, have all put off editors and explain
the difficulties of translation. The value of the work, however, does not reside
in its style, which deliberately imitates Thucydides, and is overblown, often
confusing, and replete with fictive speeches in the antique style. Its principal
merit is the equanimity of its judgments on the Ottomans, who are no lon-
ger compared to the plagues of antiquity, but rather other nations that had
created empires. And the information Chalkokondyles conveys is remarkably
rich. He not only utilized Byzantine, but also Ottoman and western sources,
which informed his broad views on the history of his times. His treatments of

77  For a recent, comprehensive overview of Chalkokondyles, his work, the manuscript tradi-
tion, editions and translations, see Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, pp. 9–13. Following this
introduction are the passages pertinent to Vlad III Dracula (i.e., pp. 14–41, with excel-
lent commentary), in the original Greek (using Darkó’s 1922–1927 edition) with facing
German translation. A year after this publication, Anthony Kaldellis produced his ver-
sion of the text with the now definitive English translation: The Histories, ed. and trans.
Anthony Kaldellis, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014).
Accompanying this is his excellent study, A New Herodotos: Laonikos Chalkokondyles on
the Ottoman Empire, the Fall of Byzantium, and the Emergence of the West, Supplements
to the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 33–34 (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection, 2014).
236 CHAPTER 7

Spain, France, England (Charlemagne, the Battle of Roncevaux, the Hundred

Year War, and Joan of Arc78), Germany, Russia, the Romanians, and the na-
tive peoples of the Black Sea attest to a great curiosity and openness of spirit.
Chalkokondyles’ account is important above for the character of its evidence—
direct or indirect—for the events to which he was contemporary.
An honest historian, the Athenian indicated when his information derived
from oral traditions, which suggests he was either constantly traveling (he went
to the Morea after the Turkish conquest of Athens in 1458), or was based in
some privileged locale, with a variety of human contacts, like Constantinople.
His long stays in Mistra and Athens only partially explain his familiarity with
the events he recorded. Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople, and then of
Athens and the Morea, resulted in a considerable mix of populations. Numerous
aristocrats fled to the west, such as his cousin Demetrios Chalkokondyles, who
settled in Italy, first in Rome and later in Padua. Others were enslaved (like
the historian George Sphrantzes) or felt compelled to convert to Islam to save
their lives.
Chalkokondyles himself seems to have enjoyed a certain freedom of
movement, and had important contacts with the new authorities. This im-
pression is reinforced by the first-hand testimony of Theodore Spandounes
(ca. 1450–1511), author of an important treatise on the Ottomans, and a diplo-
mat in Mehmed II’s service. In his work, which went through several editions
in the sixteenth century, including a French translation by Balarin de Raconis
(Généalogie du Grand Turc à present régnant [Paris, 1510]), Spandounes states
that Chalkokondyles was a secretary of Mehmed II, and present at the Battle
of Varna in 1444.79 These assertions have generally been considered inaccurate.
We believe, however, that they contain a kernel of truth, namely that our his-
torian was working in proximity to some high Ottoman official. Scholars who
have studied Chalkokondyles have observed that he clearly knew the situation
in the Ottoman Empire very well. He was perfectly familiar with the official vo-
cabulary pertaining to the court, army, and imperial hierarchy. His detailed de-
scription of the festivals held in Istanbul in 1457, celebrating the circumcision

78  Alain Ducellier, “La France et les îles britanniques vues par un Byzantin du XVe siècle:
Laonikos Chalkokondylis,” in Économies et sociétés au Moyen Age: Mélanges offerts à
Edouard Perroy, [no editor specified], Série Etudes, vol. 5 (Paris: Publications de la
Sorbonne, 1973), 439–456.
79  On Spandounes, and the text and its sources, see Nicol, On the Origin of the Ottoman
Emperors, vii–xxv, and p. 145 for Spandounes’ mention of Chalkokondyles.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 237

of an imperial prince, could only have been that of an eye witness.80 All the
foregoing clearly indicate that this Greek historian lived among the Turks.

In the Entourage of Mahmud Pasha

In our opinion, the high Ottoman court official to whom Laonikos

Chalkokondyles was attached must have been Mahmud Pasha, grand vi-
zier from 1453 to 1468, and again from 1472 to 1473. He died in 1474, strangled
on the orders of Mehmed II.81 We can establish, from a close reading of
Chalkokondyles’ history, that the figure our author cites most frequently, after
sultan Mehmed II, is Mahmud Pasha.82 This is of course explicable owing to
Mahmud Pasha’s prominent role in the life of the empire. Other details, more-
over, on the grand vizier’s military feats, and the organization and revenues
of the empire, strongly suggest that Chalkokondyles obtained intelligence
within the immediate entourage of Mahmud Pasha. We cannot help conclud-
ing, therefore, that our historian had personally known the renegade Greek, or
lived in his close proximity.
It’s known that Mahmud Pasha employed one if not many Greeks in the
imperial chancery, who oversaw correspondence and affairs pertaining to
the Greek world. As beylerbeyi (governor) of Rumeli, the European part of the
empire, the grand vizier was in charge of these secretaries. A notable exam-
ple here was Thomas Katabolenos, whom Vlad the Impaler killed, along with
Hamza bey, in 1462. It was in this world of secretaries, Greek or otherwise,
of the imperial council (divan, in Turkish) that Chalkokondyles must have de-
rived his information on the revenues and organization of the empire, as he
himself says at the end of the eighth book of the history. His calculation of
the strength of the Ottoman army in 1462, campaigning in Wallachia against
Dracula, again reflects back to this secretarial circle au courant with fiscal
information:

80  Cf. Akdes Nimet [Kurat], Die türkische Prosopographie bei Laonikos Chalkokondyles
(Hamburg: Niemann and Moschinski, 1933), 17–18.
81  Cazacu, “Les Parentés byzantines et ottomanes de l’historien Laonikos Chalkokondylès,”
95–114. In addition see Theoharis Stavrides’ biography, The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and
Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453–1474), The Ottoman
Empire and its heritage, vol. 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
82  For the exact number of citations, see Nimet [Kurat], Die türkische Prosopographie, 57–59.
238 CHAPTER 7

They say that [Mehmed II’s] army was huge, second in size only to the
one that this sultan had led against Byzantion. It is also said that this
camp was more beautiful than all the others in its orderly arrangement
of weapons and gear, and that its size was two hundred and fifty thou-
sand men. This is easy to calculate from the contractors who arranged
the crossing of the Danube and who bought passage for the sultan’s men,
to the amount of three hundred thousand gold staters, and it is said that
they made huge profits.83

The same observation applies to his calculation of the revenues accruing

from transit tolls over the straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles): “From fer-
ries and road tolls I have ascertained that it is about two hundred thousand
[ducats].”84
It’s therefore not impossible that Chalkokondyles was a functionary con-
nected with the imperial council, perhaps in the area of finances, as was the
case with other Christians. He could have been recommended to the sultan
and his entourage as an expert in Greek and Latin literature by his old friend,
the Italian Cyriacus of Ancona (ca. 1392–1452). In 1452, the latter was read-
ing to the young sultan Mehmed II, on a daily basis, “the Roman histories …
[Diogenes] Laertius, Herodotus, Livy, Quintus Curtius Rufus, and chronicles
of the popes, emperors, kings of France, and the Lombards.”85 This globe
trotter, archaeologist, and spy had traveled throughout the entire eastern
Mediterranean in the years 1440–1450 and was appreciated by sultan Murad II
and his son and successor Mehmed II. Perhaps it was Cyriacus who presented
Chalkokokndyles to the Ottoman porte, thus permitting him to approach
Mahmud Pasha and his circle of intellectuals, who gathered every Friday night
around a meal. Their discussions ranged from poetry, to the art of governing,
history, and religious themes.86

83  Translation here from Appendix, p. 350. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.90, pp. 376 [Greek]/377 [English].
Cf. also Speros Vryonis, Jr., “Laonicus Chalcocondyles and the Ottoman Budget,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies 7, no. 3 [1976]: 423–432), who argues that
Chalkokondyles’ information on Ottoman finances clearly reflects his conversations with
high Ottoman officials at the court of Mehmed II.
84  For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans. ed. and trans.
Kaldellis, vol. 2, 8.76, pp. 268 [Greek]/269 [English].
85  Cf. here the Venetian Jacopo Languschi’s testimony, reproduced in Zorzi Dolfin’s chroni-
cle under the year 1452 (Colin, Cyriaque d’Ancone, 381 and 383).
86  Tūrsūn Beg, ed. and summary Inalcik and Murphey, 20–24; Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs,
301.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 239

The grand vizier’s circle of intimates included several Turkish historians,

namely Enveri, who dedicated a work to him; Tūrsūn Beg, who remembered
his twelve years as secretary of the imperial council, under Mahmud Pasha,
as “the most agreeable” of his life; Karamani Mehmed Pasha; Saruca Kemal;
and finally Șükrullah bin Șihabü’d-Din Ahmed, author of a universal history
in Persian dedicated to Mahmud Pasha.87 The grand vizier also possessed a
beautiful library and wrote verses which were appreciated by contemporaries.
None of the Friday dinner guests, however, had Chalkokondyles’ familiarity
with Europe and the great Christian states. Thus, the excursuses our historian
inserted in his work were able to satisfy Mahmud and his friends’ curiosity
on a theme which likewise intrigued the sultan.88 In consequence, Mahmud’s

87  For these personages, see Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtschreiber der Osmanen und ihre
Werke (Leipzig: O. Harrassowitz, 1927), 19, 24–27, 33–34 and 410–415; Stavrides, The Sultan
of Vezirs, 294–307.
88  On the value of these excursuses, see Ducellier, “La France et les îles britanniques vues par
un Byzantin,” 439–456, and Hans Ditten’s various publications on this subject: “Spanien
und die Spanier im Spiegel der Geschichtsschreibung des byzantinischen Historikers
Chalkokondyles (15. Jahrhundert),” Helikon: Rivista di tradizione e cultura classica
dell’Università di Messina 3 (1963): 170–195; “Bemerkungen zu Laonikos Chalkokondyles’
Deutschland-Exkurs,” Byzantinische Forschungen 1 (1966): 49–75; Der Russland-Exkurs des
Laonikos Chalkokondyles: Interpretiert und mit Erläuterungen versehen, Berliner byzan-
tinistische Arbeiten, vol. 39 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968); “Bemerkungen zu Laonikos
Chalkokondyles’ Nachrichten über die Länder und Völker an den europäischen Küsten
des Schwarzen Meeres (15. Jahrhundert u. Z.), Klio: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 43–45
(1965): 185–246; “Laonikos Chalkokondyles und die Sprache der Rumänen,” in Aus der
byzantinistischen Arbeit der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed. Johannes Irmscher,
Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten, vol. 5 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1957), 93–105.
 For Italy, the Romanians, and the Black Sea peoples, Chalkokondyles was able to
benefit from information conveyed by his own cousin, Demetrios Chalkokondyles, a
refugee in Italy since 1449, and professor at Padua since 1463. Sometime in 1456–1458,
Demetrios had visited Wallachia and/or Moldavia while on embassy to Poland, or the
Tatars (“in Sauromatas Scythas”), and had admired a Romanian city (Târgoviște?), where
inhabitants were speaking a Roman language. On this, see Alexandru Marcu, “Riflessi di
storia rumena in opere italiane dei secoli XIV e XV,” Ephemeris dacoromana: Annuario
della Scuola romena di Roma 1 (1923): 373–374; Giuseppe Cammelli, “Calcocondiliana:
Correzioni alla biografia di Demetrio Calcondila dalla sua nascita (1423) alla sua no-
mina nello Studio di Padova (1463),” in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, vol. 3, Letteratura
e storia bizantina = Studi e testi, vol. 123 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
1946), 252–272. Demetrios had gone to Rome to meet his uncle, the Byzantine patriarch
Gregory III Mammas, a supporter of the union between Catholic and orthodox churches
achieved at the Council of Florence in 1439, and member of the Melissenos family. Cf.
240 CHAPTER 7

Friday symposiums were competing with the other major circle of literary
patronage in Constantinople, that of the sultan.
In addition to the foregoing, we may buttress our thesis with internal evi-
dence from Chalkokondyles, in particular his account of the 1462 campaign
against Dracula. Our historian provides otherwise unknown details regard-
ing Hamza Bey and Thomas Katabolenos’ failed attempt to ambush Vlad, and
notes that Hamza Bey’s stake was higher than average. The historian adds an-
other detail that proves his familiarity with the affairs of the Ottoman imperial
court:

The following thing is also said, that the report concerning these things
had first reached the lord Mahmud, namely about the murder of the en-
voys and Hamza the prefect, and the burning of the land, but he had not
found a way of reporting to the sultan what the Wallachians had done
to the sultan’s men, and the sultan had taken this badly. It is even said
that he struck blows upon the man. This is not regarded as a particularly
shameful thing in the sultan’s Porte, for these men associated with him in
his rule are the sons of slaves and not of Turks.89

Only Chalkokondyles specifies that the number of Vlad Dracula’s victims in

Wallachia was 20,000.90 Most sources confuse this figure with the 25,000 Turks
and Bulgarians massacred during the Wallachian raid of winter 1461–1462.
Regarding the forest of stakes which Dracula had erected near his residence,
the information we find in Tūrsūn Beg, who participated in this campaign, re-
curs in Chalkokondyles, but with significant additional detail. The latter alone
specifies its dimensions, i.e., as seventeen stades long by seven wide, which
translates to three by one kilometers.91 Likewise it had to have been an eye-
witness source who conveyed to our historian that Dracula—perhaps
disguised as a merchant?—personally spied on the Ottoman camp, and on
several occasions. In Chalkokondyles’ words:

Vitalien Laurent, “Le Vrai surnom du patriarche de Constantinople Grégoire III (†1459):
Ἡ Μαμμή, non ὁ Μάμμας,” Revue des études byzantines 14 (1956): 201–205.
89  Translation here from Appendix, p. 349. For the original Greek with facing English trans-
lation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.88, pp. 374 [Greek]/375 [English].
90  Appendix, p. 348. For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans.
Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.83, pp. 368 [Greek]/369 [English].
91  Appendix, p. 354. For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans.
Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.104, pp. 392 [Greek]/393 [English].
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 241

It was even said that Vlad himself entered as a spy into the sultan’s camp
and went around to observe its conditions. But I cannot believe that Vlad
would willingly expose himself to such a danger, as he would have been
able to use many spies of his own, but this tale, I believe, was made up to
give a sense of his daring. For many days he used to approach very close
to the camp and observe the tents of the sultan and Mahmud, and the
marketplace.92

Chalkokondyles’ originality is also revealed in his description of Vlad’s night

attack, in the course of which Mahmud Pasha and his men fought bril-
liantly. Another telling episode is that where a Romanian soldier is taken
prisoner and personally interrogated by the grand vizier, who even speaks ad-
miringly of Dracula’s military potentials. Again this information is unique to
Chalkokondyles, and appears to have derived directly from Mahmud Pasha’s
entourage:

The sultan’s soldiers had, during the previous night, captured one of
Vlad’s soldiers, and they took him to Mahmud who asked him who he was
and where he was from. As he was answering these questions, Mahmud
also asked him if he knew where Vlad, the ruler of Wallachia, happened
to be. He replied that he knew exactly but would tell them nothing what-
soever about it, because he feared Vlad. They said that they would kill
him if he did not tell them what they wanted to know, but he said that he
was more than ready to die, and would not dare to reveal anything about
that man. Mahmud was amazed by this and, while he killed the man, he
commented that with such fear surrounding him and an army worth the
name, that man would surely go far. That, then, was what happened at
that time.93

Chalkokondyles’ account of Dracula owes much to one or several eye witness

sources, and its rather significant extent—more than 5% of the narrative as
a whole—constitutes additional proof of how the Wallachian princes’ ac-
tions were resounding throughout southeastern Europe. Thanks to its wide
diffusion (Jenő Darkó lists no less than twenty-six manuscript copies, along
with Latin translations and various compilations in Greek), as well as its

92  Translation here from Appendix, p. 352. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.98, pp. 384 [Greek]/385 [English].
93  Translation here from Appendix, p. 353. For the original Greek with facing English transla-
tion, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.102, pp. 388/390 [Greek], 389/391 [English].
242 CHAPTER 7

incontestable value, Chalkokondyles’ history played a significant role in mak-

ing the Romanian prince, and his personality, known to a certain readership.
Chalkokondyles assuredly depicts Dracula as a cruel sovereign, but one who
had a coherent political plan. His goal was to annihilate the country’s tradi-
tional aristocracy, which was too unstable and constantly inclined to change
their princes, and replace it with a new nobility formed of “good soldiers and
bodyguards for his own use,” or “a corps of bodyguards for himself, who lived
with him.” To these faithful followers, he distributed goods confiscated from
rebels, with the result that “he quickly effected a great change and utterly revo-
lutionized the affairs of Wallachia.”94
Chalkokondyles does not pass harsh judgment on Dracula. So too his nar-
rative does not constrain us from admiring Dracula’s courage in combat, or
his determination to carry out his goals, and this only helps to underscore the
military qualities, numerical superiority, and strategy of the Turks and their
commanders—Mehmed II, Mahmud Pasha, and Turahanoğlu Ömer Bey.
Vlad’s political project, and the brutality with which he implemented it, did
not disturb him excessively. Whether or not he had eye-witness testimony,
Chalkokondyles had heard of the massacres in Constantinople, the Morea,
Serbia, Albania, and Bosnia. So too he was aware of how Ottoman landowners,
functionaries, and soldiers had systematically replaced local Christian elites,
who were physically liquidated or forced into exile.
All in all, Chalkokondyles’ account of Mahmud Pasha’s deeds and actions
is so richly detailed that one cannot help seeing here homage to the grand
vizier, who was—let us remember—a scion of one of the noblest families
that ever ruled the Byzantine Empire.95 It’s as if a new Alexius Komnenos or
Michael Palaiologos, founders of legendary dynasties, had reappeared in the
guise of this descendant of the Angeloi, the Palaiologoi, the Kantakouzenoi,
and the Philanthropenoi, who was captured by the Turks and converted to
Islam, under the name of Mahmud. A brilliant spirit, he succeeded—without
the help of a clan, or pressure group—in attaining the heights of power and
maintaining himself there in splendor, victory after victory. He donated large

94  Translation here from Appendix, p. 348. For the original Greek with facing English trans-
lation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 2, 9.83, pp. 368 [Greek]/369 [English].
95  Among his ancestors on his father’s side were two twelfth-century emperors: Isaac II
Angelos (1185–1195 and 1203–1204) and Alexios III Angelos (1195–1203). His mother was
a scion of the imperial Palaiologan family, whose forebears included no less than nine
emperors from Michael VIII (1261–1282) down to the last ruler of Byzantium, Constantine
XI (1448–1453). One likewise finds in his ancestry, dating from the thirteenth century, high
dignitaries from the Philanthropenos and Kantakouzenos families.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 243

sums to the construction of mosques, baths, palaces, schools, etc. These foun-
dations made Mahmud the greatest builder in the empire, ahead of the sul-
tan and all the other fifteenth century grand viziers. In addition he was, after
Mehmed II, the most important patron of public education, and the greatest
benefactor, protector of scholars, and animating force of a cultural circle rival-
ing that of the sultan.96

Chalkokondyles’ Disappearance

Chalkokondyles must have been captivated by Mahmud’s charisma. And if he

reaped no benefit from it, this is because his work wasn’t finished. His writ-
ing was interrupted between April 1469—when Matthias Corvinus was elected
king of Bohemia—and July 12, 1470, on which date the island of Euboea fell
to the Turks. The latter date provides a terminus ante quem, because through-
out the history, Chalkokondyles describes Euboea as still under Venetian
domination. Something had prevented Chalkokondyles from continuing and
revising his work. The hypothesis of illness and death seems the least probable.
The historian was still relatively young at this point (forty seven years at most),
and we are inclined to suppose that a more probable cause was some upheaval
in Chalkokondyles’ life. But what happened in 1469–1470?
A quick glance at Mahmud Pasha’s political career reveals the following
troubling coincidence. The interval 1469–1470 closely overlaps with the peri-
od when the grand vizier fell into disgrace and was deprived of nearly all his
functions, following his return from a victorious campaign against the emir of
Karaman (October-November 1468).
Mahmud’s misfortune was engineered by Rum Mehmed Pasha, who ingra-
tiated himself with the sultan and, as of 1466, had become the second vizier.
Adept at intrigues and conspiracies, he was in fact spying on his master, the
grand vizier.97 In our view, however, the ultimate cause for Mahmud’s disgrace
was the sultan’s jealousy over his amazingly brilliant second in command.
Mehmed II was neither a great builder nor benefactor, and his sole interest in
these years was war.98 However, even in this area, Mahmud Pasha surpassed
him. Moreover, his mandate to govern Rumili (Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Bulgaria,

96  On Mahmud’s foundations, see Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs, 267–293.
97  Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and his Time, 272–273; Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs,
164–167.
98  Babinger, op. cit. supra, 419ff.
244 CHAPTER 7

and Macedonia), which had occupied him since 1456, made Mahmud a quasi-
sultan in this region.99
After his dismissal, Mahmud Pasha retired to his property of Hasköy, thirty
kilometers from Adrianople. After so many years of good and loyal service, he
must have felt wounded by this injustice. Especially since the reason for his
disgrace was a trivial matter skillfully exploited by the bilious Rum Mehmed
Pasha. But to whom could he turn for justice and redress? In the Ottoman sys-
tem, the only judge capable of righting an injustice was the sultan himself, he
who had stripped him of his command! However, a man of his caliber, barely
forty five years of age, could not sit idle. His networks, particularly in Rumili,
were still intact. The men whom Mahmud had appointed to office were still
there, waiting for a signal to take action.
And, in our opinion, this is precisely when Chalkokondyles intervened—
the Athenian historian, refugee, Mahmud’s intellectual protégé, unabashed
admirer of the grand vizier, whom Chalkokokondyles perceived as a distant
relative, whose bearing recalled his imperial Greek origins. At the very begin-
ning of his work, Chalkokondyles evoked the metaphor of shifting fortune, a
highly popular theme in the Middle Ages. It was depicted as a wheel which, in
its turning, dethroned kings and emperors, and raised up anew those who had
fallen, and the humble, and the destitute. The events which he recounts in his
history, continues Chalkokondyles:

… are in no way less worthy of being remembered than any that have
ever taken place anywhere in the world. I am referring to the fall of
the Greeks and the events surrounding the end of their realm, and to the
rise of the Turks to great power, greater than that of any other powerful
people to date. Realizing that the happiness of this life tends to reverse
itself, being sometimes in one state and at others in its opposite, I believe
it is proper to leave a fitting record of these two peoples.100

And consider also the following lines, the exact meaning of which we might
comprehend in light of Mahmud Pasha’s life experiences:

Let no one disparage us for recounting these matters in the Greek lan-
guage, for the language of the Greeks has spread to many places through-
out the world and has mixed with many other languages. It is already

99  Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs, 188–189.

100  For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 1, 1.1,
pp. 2 [Greek]/3 [English].
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 245

exceedingly prestigious and will be even more so in the future, when a

king who is Greek himself, along with the kings that follow after him, will
rule over a substantial kingdom. There the sons of the Greeks may finally
be gathered together and govern themselves according to their own cus-
toms, in a manner that is most favorable for themselves and from a posi-
tion of strength with regard to other peoples.101

The idea of a Greek emperor reigning over Greeks, reunited in consequence

of a shift in fortune, would find its way into the spirit of Mahmud Pasha.
Meanwhile, in 1469, the sultan indeed recalled him from his exile and conferred
on him the government of Gallipoli, and command of the fleet. But other plans
had ripened and taken shape. Mahmud would become master of the Morea!
To this end, and with unprecedented audacity, he opened secret negotiations
with Venice, something unknown to historians until Ivan Božić’s discoveries in
1975.102 This happened during the war against Venice (1463–1479) and consti-
tuted an act of high treason.
These negotiations lasted through all of 1470, and in December, Venice con-
firmed its acceptance of Mahmud Pasha’s proposal. The latter was engaged
to deliver the “black castles” (Nigra castella) of the Dardanelles—Kelid-ul-
Bahr (“the key to the sea”), on the European side, and Boğas Hisar (or Kale-i
Sultaniye) in Anatolia—and the entire Ottoman fleet, of which he was admi-
ral. In exchange, Venice would provide him a pension of 40,000 ducats per year
until Mahmud became the master of Morea. The grand vizier’s offer was not
conveyed in writing, but was orally transmitted by two trusted men, who were

101  For the original Greek with facing English translation, see ed. and trans. Kaldellis, vol. 1,
1.2, pp. 2/4 [Greek], 3/5 [English].
102  On these negotiations, see Ivan Božić, “Kolebanja Mahmud Paše Anđelovića [The inde-
cisiveness of Mahmud Pasha Angelović],” Prilozi za književnost, jezik, istoriju i folklor 41,
nos. 3–4 (1975): 159–171; Alexandre Popović, “La biographie du Grand Vizir Mahmud Pașa
Adni entre la ‘Turcologie’ et la ‘Balkanologie,” in Mélanges offerts à Louis Bazin par ses dis-
ciples, collègues et amis, eds. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Grammont et al., Varia Turcica (Institut
franc̦aise d’études anatoliennes d’Istanbul), vol. 19 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1992), 227–228;
Jean Michel Cantacuzène and Matei Cazacu, “Généalogie et empire: Les Cantacuzène
de l’époque byzantine à l’époque ottomane,” in L’Empereur hagiographe: Culte des saints
et monarchie byzantine et post-byzantine. Actes des colloques internationaux “L’empereur
hagiographe,” 13–14 mars 2000 et “Reliques et miracles,” 1–2 novembre 2000 tenus au New
Europe College, ed. Petre Guran with Bernard Flusin, Série des publications Relink du
New Europe College (Bucharest: Colegiul Noua Europă, 2001), 294–303; and Stavrides,
The Sultan of Vezirs, 220–234.
246 CHAPTER 7

also his relatives, namely Alessio Span and John Kantakouzenos. The latter ad-
ministered the silver mines of Novo Brdo, where Mahmud himself was born.
For two and a half years, communications were suspended, or more likely
our documentation is incomplete. Meanwhile, Mahmud was restored to the
sultan’s good graces, and on September 5, 1472, he was reappointed grand vi-
zier, with a mandate to organize a large campaign against Venice’s Anatolian
ally, the Turkoman emir Uzun Hassan. And this interfered with Mahmud’s se-
cret agenda, since preparing for the Anatolian expedition was hardly condu-
cive to an assault on the Dardanelles strongholds, or surrendering to Venice
the fleet over which Mahmud, not incidentally, was no longer the commander.
It was then that Mahmud sent the Venetians even more audacious proposals.
This involved, among other things, the Venetian fleet sailing to the Dardanelles
and taking Constantinople! This was such an enormous offer that the Venetian
Council of Ten sought further information and “a written letter and genuine
guarantees” from the hand of the pasha himself. We are now in April 1473.
Negotiations dragged on and Mahmud had to depart for the campaign
against Uzun Hassan. Although victorious, Mahmud was again dismissed and
then executed on July 18, 1474, at the sultan’s command. His negotiations with
Venice had surely been discovered. But it was indeed a grandiose plan—to
seize the imperial city and have a basileus proclaimed in place of Mehmed II,
thus restoring the Byzantine Empire. The enormity of Mahmud’s treason, it
would seem, influenced the sultan’s decision not to make the affair public.
Mahmud’s accomplices suffered different fates. Alessio Span fled to Venice
where he peacefully died in 1495.103 As for John Kantakouzenos, in 1477 he and
his brothers, sons, and grandsons were arrested—around twenty in all—and
were executed in Constantinople on the sultan’s orders. Let’s not forget that
Mehmed II maintained a vast network of spies. In Venice alone, a contempo-
rary sources informs us, the sultan had two highly placed spies who informed
him of all the state secrets, to such an extent that the Venetians could not even
“clean their teeth without spies immediately informing the sultan.”104
In light of all this information, it seems likely that Laonikos Chalkokondyles
met the same fate as Mahmud Pasha and John Kantakouzenos. His words on
the appearance of a Hellene emperor reigning over the children of the Hellenes
sound like an expression of a hope which had crystallized between 1469 and
1473. This vast conspiracy must have absorbed all our historian’s energies. And

103  Cf. Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs, 409–410 (“The Span Family in Venice in the
16th Century”).
104  Ibid., 233 and note 104.
Tyrant Or Great Sovereign ? 247

having abandoned his pen for political action, he probably lost his life, leaving
us a work that remains unfinished.
In conclusion, these two intellectuals fascinated by Dracula’s deeds—
Fyodor Kuritsyn and Laonikos Chalkokondyles—paid dearly for their
­­enthusiasm for the ideal of autocratic monarchy. The cost for Kuritsyn was
banishment, and Chalkokondyles paid with this life.
Their works are the sole testimonies to the strength of their convictions, and
are now inscribed in the longue durée of history.
 CHAPTER 8

Dracula and Bram Stoker

Ioan Bogdan’s book, which appeared in 1896, was the first to assess the state
of knowledge of the history of Vlad Ţepeș, Prince of Wallachia. A year later, in
London, the Irishman Bram Stoker (1847–1912) published his novel Dracula,
which would launch our hero from the domain of history into the realms of
fantasy, and assure him a celebrity far surpassing that of the historic fifteenth
century figure. Meanwhile the “Vlad the Impaler of history” was rather much
forgotten except for Romanian historians, who securely established him in the
national pantheon of past heroes.
But the history of a small country rarely interests anyone outside the nar-
row circle of local specialists. On the other hand, vampires and their Prince
Dracula—or Emperor, according to Professor Van Helsing—appealed to uni-
versally shared, deeply profound beliefs and fears about death and the after-
life. These are the themes which have preoccupied all humanity since Homo
sapiens began burying its dead, and then dying them ochre, the color of life,
and placing in their tombs various familiar objects.1

Of Bats in General …

From the Egyptian pyramids to the Asian steppe kurgans, the houses for the
dead betray a common driving concern—that the deceased not return to
the world of the living. This belief in the “living corpse,” a concept developed
by the German anthropologist Hans Naumann in 1921,2 accounts for the first
stage in human thought on the subject of the dead. A second level of primi-
tive thought conceived of each individual or animal as having a double body.
Paleolithic hunters drew horses, bison or deer on cave walls and viewed such

1  Cf. Ernst E. Wreschner, Ralph Bolton, et al., “Red Ochre and Human Evolution: A Case for
Discussion [and Comments and Reply],” Current Anthropology 21, no. 5 (October, 1980): 631–
644; Erella Hovers, Shimon Ilani, et al., “An Early Case of Color Symbolism Ochre Use by
Modern Humans in Qafzeh Cave,” Current Anthropology 44, no. 4 (August/October, 2003):
491–522.
2  In chapter two of his Primitive Gemeinschaftskultur: Beiträge zur Volkskunde und Mythologie
(Jena: E. Diederichs, 1921). Cf. James R. Dow, “Hans Naumann’s gesunkenes Kulturgut and
primitive Gemeinschaftskultur,” Journal of Folklore Research 51, no. 1 (2014): 49­100.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_009

Dracula And Bram Stoker 249

images as these animals’ “second bodies.” They would strike at the latter with
their weapons in some warrior ritual, convinced that, in so doing, they would
be able to capture the real animal which they had wounded in its “second body.”
In a third level of primitive belief, the duality of body and soul is distinguished,
the soul being envisioned as the breath of life, or blood. We find this concept
in the Old Testament, specifically in Deuteronomy 12:23, where Yahweh con-
veys to the Hebrews, through Moses, His code of laws: “Only take care not to
consume the blood, for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the life
with the flesh.”3 Here, accordingly, return from the dead is imagined as a soul
in the form of breath, a cloud, or a shadow. Or the form can be an animal—a
fly, butterfly, mouse, wolf, dog, bat, or rooster—in which the vital energy or
soul of the undead is incarnate. This is the point of departure for beliefs which
set the stage for vampires, who drink the blood of the living to ensure their
own existence. The appearance and diffusion of Christianity has considerably
heightened the significance of the soul, which must separate from the body to
go to purgatory, or, in the Orthodox Church, some undefined space. To this day
Eastern Christianity maintains this uncertainty—and the Balkan and Eastern
Slavic peoples (excepting the Poles) belong to this fold—, an ambiguity which
has fostered beliefs in vampires.
Ancient funeral rites, so laden with symbols which are today forgotten or
not understood, served to accompany the dead to the beyond—down into the
earth for the ancient Greeks and Romans, up into the blue sky for the Germans
(to Odin’s Hall of Valhalla) and the Dacians, ancestors of the Romanians. This
voyage to the beyond might be compromised if rites were not performed, for
example if one suffered an accidental or violent death in a foreign land. The
same might happen if rites were performed carelessly or mishaps occurred.
There were also symbolic burials—perhaps of ancient origin—wherein fu-
neral rites were properly performed, but no body was present. An example
here is relatively recent. In 1943, at the Battle of Stalingrad, tens of thousands
of Romanian soldiers were killed or lost in battle. Subsequently, even though
bodies had not been recovered, their families in Romania organized funerals
arguing that “the army of the dead” had returned home and was demanding a
decent burial (Mircea Eliade). We’ll consider later how these various funeral
rites are conducted.
It sometimes happened, however, that a dead person was not pleased with
the ritual and returned to disturb the living at night, between midnight and the
cock’s crow, and sometimes even in broad daylight. He would demand a new
burial, but his appearance and actions so frightened the living that often they

3  The Jerusalem Bible, gen. ed. Jones, 235.

250 CHAPTER 8

could not understand his message. Thus, enraged at not being understood, the
deceased took vengeance on his family and close friends, emptying them of
their blood to the point they became ill and followed him in death, themselves
transformed into vampires. In summary, a vampire is the soul of a deceased
person and not a demonic being, although this distinction is still not very clear.
The Orthodox Church, however, has always upheld the view that the undead
are in fact “demoniacal apparitions,” and that the devil can assume any form,
even that of a dead person. We’ll examine these ideas in greater detail in the
following chapter.
The vampire is thus part of a large family of revenants or ghosts, common
to all civilizations. In the Slavic and Balkan world of particular interest to us
here, the universally known term for our subject is “vampire,” which comes
from the old Slavic word opyr or opir.4 From the latter are derived the various
forms for “vampire” in Bulgarian, what was formerly known as Serbo-Croatian
(i.e., Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian), Polish, Ukranian, and close variants in other
Slavic languages. The root of opyr comes from a word meaning “bat,” and the
etymological sense of opir is “to fly, glide, float in the air like vapour.” Hence
the transformation of the wandering soul into a bat, fly, moth, or bird in gen-
eral. When a vampire is transformed into the body of an animal, such as a wolf,
we are dealing with werevolves—vurkolak in the Slavic languages, pricolici in
Greek and Romanian. In Romanian we also find the term strigoi (feminine
strigoaică) designating a vampire, which comes from the Latin strix, striga, and
yields strega, or “sorcerer,” in Italian. Another term for these creatures of the
night is mora—in Serbo-Croatian (i.e., Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian), Russian,
and Bulgarian—and moroi in Romanian. Cognates in French and German are,
respectively, cauchemar and Mahr, meaning “nightmare.” This cluster of terms
refers more specifically to souls of infants who were stillborn, or died without
baptism.5

4  On the evolution of the Slavic term for vampire, and possible early meanings, see Bruce A.
McClelland, Slayers and their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2006), 187–191.
5  For terms and conceptions in Slavic, still fundamental is Jan L. Perkowski’s “Slavic Testimony,”
which is chapter five of his The Darkling: A Treatise on Slavic Vampirism (Columbus, Ohio:
Slavica Publishers, Inc., 1989), 75–126. Perkowski has additionally covered the Romanian evi-
dence in “The Romanian Folkloric Vampire,” East European Quarterly 16 (1982): 311–322. The
influential essays of Gerard and Murgoci have been republished as Emily Gerard & Agnes
Murgoci: Transylvanian Supersitions, Scripta Minora, II (s.n.: CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform, 2013). For a comprehensive historical survey of vampire beliefs and
folklore, with excellent thematic bibliography, see Daniela Soloviova-Horville, Les Vampires:
Dracula And Bram Stoker 251

A final term of interest, also Romanian, appears in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

and was chosen by Friedrich Murnau for the title of his celebrated 1922 film.
This is “nosferatu,” which first appears in this form in a German study pub-
lished by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1866,6 and subsequently emerges in English
in two publications by Emily de Laszowska-Gerard—namely “Transylvanian
Superstitions” (1885), and The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and
Fancies from Transylvania (1888). Stoker demonstrably used “Transylvanian
Superstitions” for information on Transylvanian vampires, and plausibly knew
The Land Beyond the Forest as well. An Englishwoman, Gerard (as she some-
times shortened her surname, as shall we hereinafter) had spent two years in
Sibiu and Brașov, where her husband commanded a cavalry regiment in the
Austro-Hungarian army. She understood nosferatu to mean “the vampire”—
“in whom every Roumenian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven
or hell.”7 This word is not, however, attested in any Romanian dictionary. The
only possible Romanian etymological link is with the word nefârtatu (literally,
“false brother”), which appears in folklore as a term for the devil.8

… and of Dracula in Particular

Let’s turn now to Bram Stoker (fig. 25) and his novel. The story is well known.
Dracula, a Szekler count in Transylvania, decides to become the owner of

Du folklor slave à la littérature occidentale, Littératures comparées, ed. Pierre Zirkuli (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2011).
6  Wilhelm Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine Tage in Meinung und Brauch der Romänen
Siebenbürgens: Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniß des Volksmythus (Hermannstadt: A. Schmiedicke
1866), 224 (“Hieran reihe ich den Vampyr—nosferatu. Es ist dies die uneheliche Frucht
zweier unehelich Gezeugter oder der unselige Geist eines durch Vampyre Getödteten, der
als Hund, Katze, Kröte, Frosch, Laus, Floh, Wanze, kurz in jeder Gestalt erscheinen kann und
wie der altslavische und böhmische Blkodlak, Vukodlak oder polnische Mora und russische
Kikimora als Incubus oder Succubus—zburatorul—namentlich bei Neuverlobten sein böses
Wesen treibt”).
7  Emily de Laszowska-Gerard, “Transylvanian Superstitions,” The Nineteenth Century: A
Monthly Review 101 (July 1885): 142. Repeated in her The Land beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures,
and Fancies from Transylvania, vol. 1 (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons,
1888), 319. In the latter publication the author’s name appears simply as “E. Gerard.”
8  Simion Florea Marian, Vrăji, farmece și desfaceri [Spells, charms, and sorcery] (Bucharest:
Lito-tipografia Carol Göbl, 1893), 37; Ion A. Candrea, Folklorul medical român comparat:
Privire generală, medicina magică [Comparative Romanian medical folklore: Overview,
magical medicine] ([Bucharest]: Casa Școalelor, 1944), 117 and 119.
252 CHAPTER 8

several houses in London, where he wishes to reside. To this end, Jonathan

Harker, a clerk in a real estate agency, makes his way to the Borgo Pass and the
count’s castle, to have him sign a deed of sale for one of the London properties,
namely Carfax. Harker quickly discovers, however, that his host is a vampire
who reigns over several ghouls (strigoaice). Held prisoner so he will not divulge
the count’s terrible secret, he cannot warn his employer or his fiancée, Mina
(Wilhelmina) Murray. Meanwhile, the count takes ship for England, confined
in a box of earth from his native land. There he rests by day, unable to tolerate
sunlight. Once in London, he vampirizes the beautiful Lucy Westenra, Mina’s
best friend, who dies but then reappears, seeking the blood of children. With
Lucy neutralized, Mina in turn is captivated and subdued by the count, who
forces her to drink his own blood and can thus read her thoughts. For his part,
Jonathan Harker escapes the Transylvanian castle, returns to London, and be-
gins hunting the vampire in the company of a few friends. Leading this group
is the Dutch doctor Abraham Van Helsing of Amsterdam, a specialist in things
vampiric. Pursued by this novel band of hunters, the count flees England and
returns to his native country. En route he is trapped in extremis by the group,
decapitated, and staked in the heart. The result is “a true miracle” and his body
turns to dust. Liberated from her bewitchment, Mina goes on to produce a
son, but Stoker leaves the reader wondering whether his father was Jonathan
Harker, or Dracula.9
The novel is composed partly as excerpts from journals which the various
protagonists are keeping—Jonathan, Mina, Lucy, Arthur Holmwood (Lucy’s
fiancé), and the doctor John Seward. Seward is additionally occupied dealing
with another of Dracula’s victims, namely Renfield, an inmate in the insane
asylum the doctor directs. The novel also includes letters written by the afore-
mentioned protagonists, as well as Van Helsing, telegrams, news clippings,
property deeds, train schedules, monument inscriptions, medical logs re-
corded via the phonograph, etc. This epistolary and documentary format, with
multiple points of view, gives the novel the appearance of a dossier or official
report. Indeed, it has all the makings of a scientific paper.

9  That the father of Mina’s son was actually Dracula is the premise of the 2009 novel Dracula
the Un-dead (New York: Dutton), by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Stoker is the great-grand
nephew of Bram Stoker.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 253

“Not On the Lips But On the Throat …”

How did the idea of writing this novel come to Stoker? At that time, in 1890,
Bram Stoker was forty-three years old and nothing would suggest that he was
predestined to become the author of Dracula.10 He was born in Dublin, and
pursued his university studies there. Graduating with a degree in mathematics,
he worked for eight years as a bureaucrat in Northern Ireland’s central admin-
istration, at Dublin Castle. But he was passionate about poetry and the theater,
and moved to London as manager of the Lyceum Theater. There he worked
side by side with the great actor Henry Irving, for whom the young Stoker pro-
fessed an admiration bordering on worship. Irving esteemed Stoker primarily
as an accountant and businessman. Following the appearance of Dracula, he
once remarked: “I had no idea Stoker had it in him; he was such a feet-on-the-
ground sort of person.”11
Stoker indicates in his notes that the idea of writing a novel about vampires
came to him in a nightmare the night of March 7, 1890. That evening Stoker had
enjoyed a seafood dinner at the Beefsteak Room in London, along with much
drink. In his nightmare, he dreamt an enormous crab was rising up from his
plate towards him, with large open claws. However, in another note, written on
the same paper with the Lyceum Theater letterhead, he jots off the following:

Young man goes out—sees girls—one tries to kiss him not on lips but
throat—Old Count interferes—rage and fury diabolical—This man be-
longs to me I want him.12

This dream is reproduced in detail in the journal Jonathan Harker wrote in

Dracula’s castle, and the three girls (possibly alluding to the three witches
in Macbeth) appear as ghouls. In any event, it was from this moment that
Stoker resolved, in greatest secrecy, to write a novel about a vampire, who ini-
tially bore the name “Count Wampyr.” On April 30, 1890, he was introduced

10  For a recent, comprehensively researched biography of Stoker, see David J. Skal, Something
in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula (New York:
Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016).
11  Cf. Christopher Frayling, “Preface,” in Bram Stoker Dracula, edited with introduction and
notes by Maurice Hindle, preface by Christopher Frayling, rev. ed. (London: Penguin
Books, 2003), ix–x.
12  Bram Stoker’s Notes for Dracula: A Facsimile Edition, annotated and transcribed by Robert
Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, foreword by Michael Barsanti (Jefferson, North
Carolina: McFarland & Company, Publishers, 2008), 17.
254 CHAPTER 8

to Arminius Vámbéry (1832–1913) at the Lyceum Theater. He was a great

Hungarian orientalist who published his works in London, because he ad-
mired the British Empire. Born Hermann Weinberger, he was a German from
Hungary, or more precisely Slovakia, which at that time was part of the
Austrian Empire. Later, after 1867, Slovakia became part of Hungary, which it-
self belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The ambiance of Hungarian
nationalism forced Vámbéry to Magyarize his name. For “Hermann” he chose
its Latin counterpart, Arminius, the victor over Octavius Augustus’ Roman le-
gions. “Weinberger” he modified as “Vámbéry,” which strongly resembles the
word “vampire.” After chaotic and unfinished studies at various universities, he
visited Constantinople where he had learned Turkish, Persian, Arabic, and sev-
eral other Asian languages and dialects. In 1863, disguised as a dervish—he’d
been nicknamed “the lame dervish”—, he joined a group of pilgrims return-
ing from Mecca and visited Central Asia (Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand). He
then returned to Europe, via Afghanistan and Persia. His book describing the
voyage appeared in London in 1864, where he personally presented the work
to the English public. From 1865 he taught oriental languages at the University
of Budapest, where a chair in Oriental Studies was created for him. A mem-
ber of the Academy of Sciences in his country, and of numerous European
scholarly societies, Vámbéry frequently visited London. He gave lectures there
denouncing Russian expansionism in central Asia and the threats it posed to
Great Britain’s strategic interests. In 1884, he published his memoirs, again in
London and likewise in English, under the title Arminius Vambery, His life and
Adventures, Written by Himself.
This Lawrence of Arabia avant la lettre was convinced that the Hungarians
were of Turkish origin, and the Szeklers descended from Attila’s Huns—ideas
which were popular in the nineteenth century, but since have been completely
abandoned. In his novel and his notes, Stoker claims he had pursued a long
correspondence with Vámbéry. But since no trace of this has been found, one
wonders if this was the case. It’s far more probable that they held long conver-
sations on the two occasions they met, in the course of which Vámbéry must
have regaled Stoker with stories about vampires in Hungary and Transylvania,
neighboring Wallachia and Moldavia.
During the summer of 1890, Stoker, his young wife Florence Balcombe, and
their son Noel took their vacation at Whitby, in Yorkshire. Since the weather was
gloomy and rainy, Stoker spent long hours in the local Museum and Subscription
Library. There, he discovered a book written by William Wilkinson, a former
English diplomat, who had been stationed in Istanbul and Bucharest between
1812 and 1818 (fig. 26). Entitled An Account of the Principalities of Walachia and
Moldavia, with Various Political Observations Relating to Them, it was printed in
Dracula And Bram Stoker 255

London in 1820. Here Stoker discovered “the Slavic title of Voïvode, equivalent
to that of commanding prince,”13 and a few pages further:

Wallachia continued to pay [the tribute to Turkey] until the year 1444;
when Ladislas King of Hungary, preparing to make war against the
Turks, engaged the Voïvode Dracula to form an alliance with him. The
Hungarian troops marched through the principality and were joined by
four thousand Wallachians under the command of Dracula’s son.
The Hungarians being defeated at the celebrated battle of Varna,
Hunniades their general, and regent of the kingdom during Ladislas’s
minority, returned in haste to make new preparations for carrying on
the war. But the Voïvode, fearful of the Sultan’s vengeance, arrested and
kept him prisoner during a year, pretending thereby to show to the
Turks that he treated him as an enemy. The moment Hunniades reached
Hungary, he assembled an army and placed himself at the head of it, re-
turned to Wallachia, attacked and defeated the Voïvoide, and caused him
to be beheaded in his presence; after which he raised to the Voïvodate
one of the primates of the country, of the name of Dan.
The Wallachians under this Voïvode joined again the Hungarians in
1448, and made war on Turkey; but being totally defeated at the battle of
Cossova, in Bulgaria, and finding it no longer possible to make any stand
against the Turks, they submitted again to the annual tribute, which they
paid until the year 1460, when the Sultan Mahomet II. being occupied in
completing the conquest of the islands in the Archipelago, afforded them
a new opportunity of shaking off the yoke. Their Voïvode, also named
Dracula, did not remain satisfied with mere prudent measures of defence:
with an army he crossed the Danube and attacked the few Turkish troops
that were stationed in his neighbourhood; but this attempt, like those of
his predecessors, was only attended with momentary success. Mahomet,
having turned his arms against him, drove him back to Wallachia, whith-
er he pursued and defeated him. The Voïvode escaped to Hungary, and
the Sultan caused his brother Bladus to be named in his place. He made a
treaty with Bladus, by which he bound the Wallachians to perpetual trib-
ute; and laid the foundations of that slavery, from which no efforts have
yet had the power of extricating them with any lasting efficacy.14

13  Wilkinson, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, 15.

14  Ibid., 17–19.
256 CHAPTER 8

And a note, at the bottom of the page, further elaborates:

Dracula in the Wallachian language means Devil. The Wallachians were,

at that time, as they are at present, used to give this as a surname to
any person who rendered himself conspicuous either by courage, cruel
actions, or cunning.15

This simple footnote changed everything dramatically. Stoker would kill

Count Wampyr and have him “reborn” in the form of Dracula. And the long pas-
sage from Wilkinson, quoted above, will appear—with many embellishments—
in the discourse on his family history which Dracula gives Jonathan Harker the
night of May 8.
The first part of this text, where Dracula sketches the glorious history of
the Szeklers, is plausibly borrowed from Emily Gerard’s book:

There are many versions to explain the origin of the Szeklers, and some
historians have supposed them to be unrelated to the great body of
Magyars living at the other side of the mountains. They are fond of de-
scribing themselves as being descended from the Huns. Indeed one very
old family of Transylvanian nobles makes, I believe, a boast of proceed-
ing in line direct from the Scourge of God himself, and there are many
popular songs afloat among the people making mention of a like belief,
as the following:

A noble Szekler born and bred,

Full loftily I hold my head.
Great Attila my sire was he;
As legacy he left to me

A dagger, battle-axe, and spear;

A heart, to whom unknown is fear;
A potent arm, which oft has slain
The Tatar foe in field and plain.

The Scourge of Attila the bold

Still hangs among us as of old;
And when this last we swing on high,
Our enemies are forced to fly.

15  Ibid., 19, starred note.

Dracula And Bram Stoker 257

The Szekler proud then learn to know,

And strive not to become his foe,
For blood of Huns runs in him warm,
And well he knows to wield his arm.16

It appears plausible from the foregoing, to repeat, that Stoker derived his in-
formation on the Szeklers from Emily Gerard. However, where did he find
the troubling detail that Dracula was himself a Szekler? In Wilkinson’s book,
Stoker had read that Dracula was a Wallachian voievod. And why did he situate
the Dracula’s castle in the Borgo Pass, with its Romanian and Saxon population
(in the cities of Bistriţa and Rodna)?
In our opinion, this confusion—if indeed it was a confusion—reflects
Stoker’s misunderstanding of what Arminius Vámbéry told him. The lat-
ter must have explained that Dracula’s descendants were the noble Szeklers,
which is factually correct. Let us recall that Vlad Dracula’s youngest son,
named Vlad like his father and grandfather, had progeny first in the Banat,
and then in Eastern Transylvania—specifically at Band, east of Târgu Mureș
(Marosvásárhely in Hungarian). This is located in Szekler country, in Doboka
county, which in Stoker’s time also included the Borgo Pass. After the Dracula
male line died out, the name was preserved in conjunction with the Géczi and
Papp family names. Descendants of Dracula through the female line, the Géczi
and Papp were still living in Doboka county when Stoker wrote his Dracula.
In Stoker’s mind, therefore, since Dracula’s descendants were Szeklers, so too
was Dracula himself! By the same token Dracula was a descendant of Attila,
since—according to the song recorded by Emily Gerard—the Szeklers were
his scions. These links also explain his courage, as well as his cruelty and ob-
sessive striving for authority. Our hypothesis, here, is not as farfetched as it
might seem, since we know nothing about Vlad’s mother, the first wife of Vlad
Dracula. Very plausibly she was a Hungarian noblewoman. But in the absence
of definitive evidence, there’s nothing to prevent us from supposing that she
could have been a Szekler.
Stoker also drew his information on Saint George’s Night from Emily
Gerard’s book. On this night evil reigns supreme, as Jonathan Harker learns
from the wife of the proprietor of the Golden Crown Inn in Bistriţa. Here is the
relevant passage:

Perhaps the most important day in the Roumanian’s year is St. George,
24th April (6th May), the eve of which is said to be still frequently kept
up by occult meetings taking place at night in lonely caverns or within

16  Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, vol. 2, 143.

258 CHAPTER 8

ruined walls, and where all the ceremonies usual to the celebration of a
witches’ Sabbath are put into practice. This night is the great one to be-
ware of witches, to counteract whose influences square-cut blocks of turf
(to which are sometimes added thorny branches) are placed in front of
each door and window. This is supposed effectually to bar their entrance
to house or stables, but for still greater precaution it is usual for the peas-
ants to keep watch all night near the sleeping cattle. This same night is
likewise the best one for seeking treasures.17

The date on which Saint George’s Day fell in Romania obviously did not ac-
cord with that celebrated in the Catholic west, owing to the use of differing
calendars. Indeed, Romania preserved the Julian calendar down to 1924, and
then adopted the Gregorian one. As for the magical practices associated with
the day, which is equivalent to the German Walpurgisnacht, Gerard derived
her information from a German scholarly work published at Sibiu a few years
before her arrival.18
In Van Helsing’s portrait of count Dracula, we find the following interesting
clarification:

[The Draculas] learned [the Evil One’s] secrets in the Scholomance,

amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil
claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as
“stregoica”—witch, “ordog”, and “pokol”—Satan and hell; and in one
manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as “wampyr,” which we all
understand too well.19

And again:

… he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and al-

chemist—which latter was the highest development of the science-
knowledge of his time.20

17  Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, vol. 1, 335.

18  Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine Tage, whence she also plausibly encountered the word “nos-
feratu” (see above, note 6). For the customs observed on St. George’s Day in comparative
perspective, see Ion A. Candrea, “Sfântul Gheorghe [Saint George],” in his Iarba fiarelor:
Studii de folklor [The grass locks: folklore studies] (Bucharest: Cultura nationala, 1928),
100–111.
19  Bram Stoker’s Dracula Unearthed, annotated and edited by Clive Leatherdale, The Desert
Island Dracula Library (Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex: Desert Island Books, 1998), 337.
20  Ibid., 413–414.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 259

To be sure, none of our historical sources posit any connection between

Dracula and/or his family with alchemy or sorcery, let alone the school of sor-
cery known in Romanian as the “Solomantă” or “Solomonărie,” which yields the
word solomonar, or “sorcerer.”21 Operative here is an allusion to King Solomon,
who was credited, in the Middle Ages, with an immense knowledge including
the language of animals, the secrets of the earth, and so on. But why would
Stoker include such a reference in his Dracula? The answer is clear in observing
what Emily Gerard had learned on the matter:

As I am on the subject of thunderstorms, I may as well here men-

tion the Scholomance, or school, supposed to exist somewhere in the
heart of the mountains, and where the secrets of nature, the language
of animals, and all magic spells are taught by the devil in person. Only
ten scholars are admitted at a time, and when the course of learning
has expired, and nine of them are released to return to their homes,
the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment, and, mounted
upon an ismeju, or dragon, becomes henceforward the devil’s aide-de-
camp, and assists him in “making the weather”—that is, preparing the
thunderbolts.
A small lake, immeasurably deep, and lying high up in the mountains
to the south of Hermanstadt, is supposed to be the caldron where is
brewed the thunder, under whose water the dragon lies sleeping in fair
weather. Roumanian peasants anxiously warn the traveller to beware of
throwing a stone into this lake, lest it should wake the dragon and pro-
voke a thunderstorm.22

We’ll examine subsequently the evidence depicting Dracula as a “vampyr.”

21  Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine Tage, 16; Moses Gaster, “Scholomonar das ist der Garabancijaš
dijak nach der Volksüberlieferung der Rumänen,” Archiv für slavische Philologie 7 (1884):
281–290; Lazăr Șăineanu, Basmele române in comparaţiune cu legendele antice clasice și
in legătură cu basmele popórelorŭ invecinate și ale tuturorŭ popórelorŭ romanice: Studiu
comparativŭ [Romanian legends as compared to the legends of classical antiquity, and in
relationship with legends of neighboring peoples and of all romance peoples: a compara-
tive study] (Bucharest: Lito-tipografia Carol Göbl, 1895), 870–871ff., where he discusses
the school of sorcery.
22  Gerard, The Land beyond the Forest, vol. 2, 5–6.
260 CHAPTER 8

Stoker a Plagiarist?

As we have seen, Stoker derived the material for his novel from a variety of
sources—borrowings from books by William Wilkinson and Emily Gerard,
information furnished by Arminius Vámbéry, readings of vampire novels rang-
ing from John William Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) to Joseph Sheridan Le
Fanu’s Carmilla (1872). And of course he rounded this out with research on
the populations of northeastern Hungary and Transylvania, the Slovaks and the
Szeklers, and culled through Baedeker guides for train schedules, descriptions
of cities and monuments, and so on.
But perhaps the most important problem remains, namely the plot or story
in which Stoker situates these characters, beginning with Dracula and the
three ghouls living under his roof.
Stoker’s story about Dracula established him, quite simply, as a highly origi-
nal author. Yet it would seem he came across it in a novel published in 1879
in Paris and Brussels, entitled Le Capitaine Vampire (nouvelle roumaine), by
Marie Nizet.23 The action takes place in Romania and Bulgaria between May
1877 and the beginning of 1878, which is reminiscent of Stoker’s novel (May to
November). Two loving couples come face to face here with a vampire, who is a
prince and commander in the Russian army, which has come to fight the Turks
in Bulgaria. The couples are Ioan Isacesco and Mariora Slobozianu, and Mitica
Slobozianu (Mariora’s brother) and Zamfira.24 One immediately notes, here,
a disturbing similarity with the couples center stage in Dracula—Jonathan
Harker-Mina Murray, and Arthur Holmwood-Lucy Westenra. Add to this the
fact that in Marie Nizet’s novel, the first couple ends up marrying, after having
been attacked by the vampire, while one member of the second couple dies
(Mitica), perhaps killed by the vampire. The close parallels in plot with Dracula
are striking.

23  Professor Radu R. Florescu, of Boston College, U.S.A., apprised us of the existence of this
novel in 1996. Author of numerous works on Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, and one of the
best specialists in the field, Florescu presented Marie Nizet’s novel before the American
Association of Romanian Studies. This was published as the introduction to my Romanian
translation of the novel, which appeared in Bucharest in 2003. For additional, but not ex-
tensive, information about Marie Nizet and her brother Henri, see Raymond Trousson’s
preface in the reprint of Henry Nizet’s novel Les Béotiens (Brussels: Académie royale de
langue et de littérature franc̦aises, 1993).
24  We retain, here, the spellings of the characters’ names as they are found in the original
French of Nizet’s novel, as published by Cazacu (Dracula, 498–632). For quotations below
in English, we use Stableford’s translation, namely Captain Vampire, but emend some of
his revised spellings of characters’ names.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 261

Marie Nizet structured her story around the Russian prince Boris Liatoukine,
who was nicknamed “Captain Vampire.” He received this name when, as a
young captain in the Crimean War (1853–1856), his soldiers had left him for
dead, soaking his body with cold water in the depths of winter, to escape
his cruel punishments. But when they returned to camp, the soldiers found
him safe and sound. In 1877, Liatoukine became colonel and aide-de-camp of
Grand Duke Nicolas Nicolaevich [Romanov], commander of the Russian army.
Thereafter he injured and insulted Ioan Isacescu, who swore to avenge himself.
The Russian officer had twice hypnotized Ioan’s fiancée, Mariora, but failed
to vampirize her since she was saved in extremis by the cock’s crow, which
frightened the vampire. Liatoukine then stole the engagement ring which Ioan
had given her, and brazenly wore it on one of his own fingers. Three months
later, when Ioan encountered Liatoukine on the battlefield in Bulgaria, he fired
a pistol in his chest and killed him. He then stabbed him in the heart three
times with a yatagan saber and cut off Liatoukine’s finger with Mariora’s en-
gagement ring. Once reunited, the betrothed proceeded to get married but
were grieving over many lost loved ones, including Mariora’s brother and her
foster brother, Aurelio Comanesco. At Christmas, the latter’s sister, Epistimia
Comanesco, invited Ioan Isacesco and Mariora to her wedding with none
other than colonel Boris Liatoukine, as alive now as ever. Terrified by the vam-
pire’s resurrection, the couple fled to Craiova in Oltenia. Here they learned of
Epistimia’s sudden death, only eight hours after the wedding, as had happened
with Captain Vampire’s first two wives.
In light of these considerations, it seems certain that Stoker—who knew
French well, and had made numerous trips to France—was in some way or an-
other aware of Capitaine Vampire before he launched into his Dracula. Marie
Nizet therefore played an important role in the evolution of vampire literature.
She is the first to have placed her tale in an “oriental” and exotic geographic
space, and in a specific historical context, namely Romania and the Russian-
Turkish war of 1877. Romanians participated in this conflict, which enabled
them to declare their independence from Turkey. This all brings to mind Vlad
Dracula, his combat with the Turks, and Ottoman control over Wallachia,
which Romanian historians prefer to call “the Turkish yoke.” Not incidentally,
Stoker’s brother George served as a surgeon in the Imperial Ottoman Army
and was a medical officer to the Bulgarian Relief Fund in 1877. Perhaps these
connections stimulated Stoker’s interest in Balkan beliefs regarding vampires.
And we can presume that his description of Varna and its environs owed some-
thing to his brother’s memories.
Working with Le Capitaine Vampire as his inspiration, Stoker probably shift-
ed the setting of the action from Wallachia to Transylvania, keeping the name
262 CHAPTER 8

and personality of his vampire intact. Like Liatoukine, Dracula is an aristocrat,

who has come to conquer the country of two loving couples. Dracula’s vam-
pirization of Mina Murray assuredly recalls Mariora’s parallel, though incom-
plete, experience. Nevertheless, Captain Vampire cannot be compared to Bram
Stoker’s character for the simple reason that Liatoukine is a “living” vampire.
He moves about by day, eats and drinks, his body casts a shadow, and so on.
What the two have in common is colossal strength (despite great thinness),
pallid appearance, burning eyes, and the need to drink human blood. Later on
we’ll explore these “dead” and “living” vampires in Romania, and east central
and southeastern Europe.

Marie Nizet and her Captain Vampire

Who is this author, unknown today not only in France, but her native Belgium?
Born on January 18, 1859 in Brussels, Marie was the daughter of Franc̦ois-Joseph
Nizet (1829–1899). In the course of his studies in law, political science, philoso-
phy, and letters, the elder Nizet published several patriotic pamphlets which
attracted the attention of king Leopold I, to whom they were dedicated. The
monarch appointed him associate curator of the Royal Library in Brussels, and,
in this capacity, Nizet went on to publish scholarly and erudite works in the
areas of history and bibliography. Four years after Marie was born, the fam-
ily grew with the arrival of a boy, baptized Henri (1863–1925), who pursued
a literary and journalistic career. While Henri attained doctoral degrees from
the University of Brussels in philosophy and letters, and later in law, Marie
studied in Paris, and then became involved in literary activities sympathetic
to the Romanians. In a volume published in 1878, entitled România (Chants
de la Roumanie), she presented poems exalting the heroic history of the land,
notably the war for independence against the Turks. As one reads through this,
however, it becomes clear that, for Nizet, the Romanians’ greatest enemies
were not, or never were, the Turks. Rather they are the Russians, and more
generally the great European powers assembled at the Congress of Berlin to
decide the fate of the small Balkan countries:

We are passing through an era of turmoils and reshufflings. The face of

Europe is renewing itself. Everywhere empires are being made, and un-
made. Chancellors are at work carrying out their tasks, and the grandeur
of great states is built on the ruins of small peoples. Should not these
weak ones, in turn, form a Holy Alliance and mutually defend them-
selves, not with arms, but with the word, and the pen of their nations?
Dracula And Bram Stoker 263

Disregarded rights, violated agreements, paltry compensations. That’s

what the story of this year has to offer, with the Treaty of Berlin ratifying
the greatest betrayal, the most shameful sale, which this century has to
record in its annals. We are speaking of the retrocession of Bessarabia.
It seems to us that the time has come to focus the attention of all good
and caring people on this unfortunate Romania, which has such a great
right to our sympathy, and which lacks but tranquility and wiser leader-
ship to attain its position on par with Switzerland and Belgium.
Belgians, we have a duty to support the cause of these Romanians,
whose little known history has so many points of similarity with our
own, and who—on the banks of the Danube—would love to be known
as brothers of the Walloons.25

Her poems sing of past heroes, but most are focused on the war for indepen-
dence, which doubles as a great act of defiance against Russia. And here the
vampire even makes his appearance:

Dorobantz, Calarash, Zinzares of somber air,

beyzades covered in gold who gleam in the shadows,
as well as the sultans,
lions of Bucharest everywhere admired,
residents [along the] Oltu who fear the vampire,
officers of twenty years.26

The Romanian “Journey” of Marie Nizet

There are those who believe that Marie Nizet never visited Romania and that
her knowledge of the country came from friends originally from Bucharest,
who in 1877 were residing in Paris. These were Eufrosina and Virgilia, daughters

25  Marie Nizet, România (Chants de la Roumanie) (Paris: August Ghio, 1878), 5–7.
26  Ibid., 26. In note 2 on p. 30, Nizet explicates the exotic terms as follows: “Romanian cav-
alry regiments are called calarashi. The Zinzares, who should not be confused with the
Tziganes [Gypsies], are the Romanians dwelling in Macedonia. The Danubian Romanians
refer to them thus because they pronouce the letter ‘c’ (tch) as in French. For example,
they say zinze for tchintche (five). Beyzade (a Turkish word meaning son of a prince) is
the title which the descendants of the ancient hospodars liked to take.” In note 1 on p. 175,
she clarifies that “the Romanian army is, in large part, composed of dorobantzi, a special
military corps of [such] military worth that none dares to contest it, and which rendered
great services during the 1877–78 war.”
264 CHAPTER 8

of Ion Heliade-Rădulescu (1802–1872), an 1848 revolutionary also known for

his literary and philosophical works. But more generally, information on the
Danubian principalities was available both in Paris and Brussels, where many
exiled Romanians had assumed residence.27 Romania then was considered
the “Belgium of the East,” and Bucharest is baptized anew as “Little Paris.”28
However, in the poem entitled Bucuresci,29 Marie clearly refers to her depar-
ture for Romania:

Immersed in the solitude

of study,
I languished in Paris.
Beneath branches stripped
of leaves
my heart suddenly became enamoured.

In the noise and in the crowd

which flows,
joyously, to the Latin Quarter,
to the forests, to the bare steppes,
little known,
I mused night and morning.

And I fled from the capital

which spreads
under its depressing gray sky;
I set forth from the country
and, no doubt,
in Bucharest I am expected.
…
[Bucharest] is called: The Paris of the East.30

27  For an overview of this production, one may profitably consult the learned work of
Alexandre Rally and Getta H. Rally, Bibliographie franco-roumaine, vol. 1, Les oeuvres
franc̦aises des auteurs roumans, and vol. 2, Les oeuvres franc̦aises relatives à la Roumanie
(Paris: E. Leroux, 1930). These volumes do not cite articles which appeared in the press,
unless they were published as offprints.
28  See the fundamental work of Catherine Durandin, Histoire des Roumains (Paris: Fayard,
1995), 108ff.
29  In a note, Nizet explicates the spelling as follows: “Bucuresci (pronounced Boucourechti)
is the Romanian name for Bucharest” (România, 94).
30  Ibid., 87–88, 94.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 265

It’s unclear whether what Marie depicts here is poetic fantasy or a real voyage,
and in the latter case, how long she stayed in Bucharest. The inspiration for the
novel’s plot must have been Ion Heliade-Rădulescu’s poem Zburătorul [The
flyer] (1843), which depicts the erotic awakening of a young girl, haunted by an
incubus—i.e., a male demon appearing in the form of a handsome young man,
with long, flowing black hair. There is but one step from incubus to vampire,
and this the young Belgian writer quickly crossed. To inform herself on the
subject, she had plenty to choose from. In addition to a rich body of Romanian
folklore, she could consult foreign travelers’ accounts, which, since the second
half of the eighteenth century, were abounding in information on local beliefs.
Let’s consider what the Austrian consul Ignazio Stefano Raicevich reports in
his Osservazione storiche, naturali, e politiche intorno la Valachia e Moldavia
[Historical, Natural, and Political Observations on Wallachia and Moldavia],
published in Naples in 1788, and translated into French in 1822.31

One of the most ridiculous theatrical displays, and one useful to the
priests, is that of vampires. They claim that a body which does not rot on
the spot retains a form of life. [And they also claim] that the soul has not
separated from the body and cannot do so, if, during his life, the individu-
al had incurred some sort of ecclesiastical excommunication, unofficially
or explicitly. [And they further claim] that during the night the body
leaves the tomb to cause all possible harm to the living. […] Those who
are most frequently exposed are police captains and food merchants,
men loathed by the people, who probably leave behind ill acquired goods
which it is only fair to share with the priests after their death.32

In the mid-nineteenth century, another traveler, Stanislas Bellanger, published

in 1846 a delightful work entitled Le Kéroutza, voyage en Moldo-Valachie, the
following passage from which is particularly interesting:

31  Ignazio Stefano Raicevich, Osservazioni storiche, naturali, e politiche intorno la Valachia
e Moldavia (Naples: Presso G. Raimondo, 1788). The French translation was done by J. M.
Lejeune, who is described on the title page as “Professeur de littérature, ex-Professeur
particulier de Son Altesse le Prince de Moldavie” (Voyage en Valachie et en Moldavie, avec
des observations sur l’histoire, la physique et la politique: Augmenté de notes et additions
pour l’intelligence de divers points essentiels [Paris: Masson et fils, 1822]).
32  Raicevich, trans. Lejeune, 131–132. For the original Italian, see Osservazioni, 234–236.
266 CHAPTER 8

The Moldo-Vlachs have their staffirs [i.e., stafii, in Romanian] and their
strigoi, as we ourselves have our lost souls, our revenants. These spirits
differ only in form. The staffir appears as a white woman who inhabits
isolated places, among the ruins, and resides in no neighborhood. What
misfortune for those inhabitants whom it comes to visit! They have to
bring it food and drink every day, and additionally on Saturday a basin of
pure water. These demands are especially burdensome because the staffir
has a gargantuan appetite and a drunkard’s thirst. And it would be for
the best, if one wants to take the trouble, to find a fountain to wash one’s
hands and feet, because the basin the staffir demands can have no other
use. And to refuse to accede to their desires is to expose oneself to more
serious consequences.
The strigoï is a dead person freshly buried in a grave on which some-
one has disrespectfully trodden. Angered by this lack of respect, it rises
up at night and goes round to all the adjacent tombs, calling on the shad-
ows of the dead, its comrades, to come to its aid … and together to go and
scratch the soles of the feet of the profaner until he has himself paid his
tribute to nature, which always happens sooner or later.
And should one wish to be delivered of these denizens, so greatly in-
convenient for many people especially at night, when one very much
wants to sleep without being disturbed? The popa is still charged with
this task. He consecrates a phial of oil before you—the quality is unim-
portant—, in which he places a paper, mysteriously folded, to soak. Then
you attach this paper to your skull along with seven hairs taken from the
front of your scalp. And in less than three weeks, even the most resistant
will completely cease their pursuits. The oil and the popa’s paper work on
them like arsenic.33

Marie Nizet could also have unearthed information in numerous scholarly

articles34 and works published in Romania as well as Transylvania, where the
cases of vampirism were, if not the most numerous, at least the best recorded.

33  Stanislas Bellangr, Le Kéroutza, voyage en Moldo-Valachie, vol. 1 (Paris: Librairie franc̦aise
et étrangère, 1846), 243–245.
34  See the article of another Frenchman, Alfred Poissonnier, “Le strigoi: Légende de la
Roumanie,” Revue franc̦aise 16 (1859): 220–226. In the German work of W. Derblich, Land
und Leute der Moldau und Wallachei (Prague: Rober & Markgraf, 1859), we find a chapter
devoted to Romanian superstitions (i.e., Chapter Twelve, pp. 134–167). Note, finally, an
article authored by E. M. Vacano (Băcanu?), “Nationelle [sic] Aberglauben: Der Vampyr,”
which appeared in Bucharest, in the German language newspaper Die Epoche, no. 464
Dracula And Bram Stoker 267

Even if she never visited Romania—a hypothesis which remains to be

proven—Nizet had at her disposal, in Paris as well as Brussels, a rich set of
holdings on Romania, Bucharest, and Romanian language, culture, tradi-
tions, and customs. And let’s observe, in this regard, that nowhere in Capitaine
Vampire do we find Marie using Romanian words designating vampires—
strigoi, vârcolac, moroi, nosferatu—but only the Slavic term “vampire,” as
loaned into French and other European languages. This would seem to be a
strong argument against the hypothesis that she stayed in Romania, where she
inevitably would have encountered at least one of these terms. Her description
of Boris Liatoukine likewise makes us think she was utilizing a more literary as
opposed to folkloristic source:

… the newcomer had a funerial aspect. He realized, with surprising exac-

titude, the legendary type-specimen of the Slavic vampire. His figure, un-
usually long and thin, projected an enormous shadow behind him, which
merged with the darkness of the ceiling. With a gesture redolent with a
slightly cold dignity, he offered a fleshless hand charged with rings to the
young officers, and deigned to take the seat that was respectfully offered
to him. His hair and beard, which were intensely black, made the livid
pallor of his long face stand out, its stern and glacial lines seeming more
reminiscent of a marble monument than any human physiognomy. The
soldiers had nicknamed him “Captain Vampire;” a stronger mind might
have label him a perfect gentleman. The eyes, which seemed the only liv-
ing things in that impassive face, displayed a singular feature: each eye-
ball, iridescent as a topaz, had a vertically slit pupil, such as one observes
in animals of the feline family. The power of that gaze was such that no
one could sustain it. The ladies of Petersburg said that Liatoukine had the
evil eye, and hastened to touch iron when he approached.
[…] As to the rest, his life was shrouded in mystery, and no one knew
any more than Stenka Sokolitch.35

By way of contrast, Stenka Sokolitch, officer and friend of Liatouki, portrays the
latter giving full measure to his vampiric dimension:

(1872), and the work of an American, James O. Noyes, Roumania: The Border Land of the
Christian and the Turk, Comprising Adventures of Travel in Eastern Europe and Western
Asia (New York: Rudd & Carleton, 1857), 168–170, 193.
35  Trans. Stableford, 32–33. For the original French, see Cazacu, Dracula, 514–515.
268 CHAPTER 8

Liatoukine was in command of a Cossack regiment. You know that he

doesn’t have a soft heart. All Cossacks are thick-skinned, it’s true, but
Liatoukine plied the knout [lash] so often and hard that one day, when
he found himself in an out-of-the-way spot with his men, they stripped
him naked, intending to freeze him to death—yes, freeze him to death!
The funny thing is that Liatoukine didn’t make a move to defend himself.
On the contrary, he smiled. Water cascaded down on him, and when he
had the appearance of a pretty crystal statue, the Cossacks, glad to be rid
of their Lieutenant, got back on their horses. When they arrived back at
camp, the first person they saw was Liatoukine, fully dressed, and not
even chilly.36

Some twenty years before Stoker, Marie Nizet also imparted to her vampire a
strong hypnotic power which plunged his victims into a trance, and prevented
them from resisting him. In contrast, the English vampire hunters were led by
a true specialist, Van Helsing, whereas the Romanians, like the Russian soldiers
in Crimea, didn’t succeed in killing the monster, even though Ioan Isacesco
stabbed him three times in the heart with his yatagan saber, on the battle-
field of Grivitsa. This last detail reinforces the skepticism of those dubious that
Marie Nizet ever visited Romania, because locals would have explained to her
how to neutralize such an adversary—i.e., a stake to the heart, and cremation
of the heart or of the entire body.
The local terms she uses (ordinary expressions, names of dances, drinks,
etc.) could have been given to her by her two friends. In addition, their father
Ion Heliade-Rădulescu had published at least nine books and brochures in
French, with a strongly anti-Russian bias. The contemporary literature could
have provided Nizet, “at a distance,” the biographical material she needed.
Thus, the majority of the characters in the novel, above all the officers, are
easily identifiable—General Cerneano, the Minister of War, is in fact General
Cernat; Colonel Leganesco is none other than the future general Gheorghe
Angelescu; the boyar Androclès Comanesco is probably brigadier general
Ahile Comăneanu, a participant in the 1877 campaign; the young Décébale
Privighetoareanu appears to be the politician Iulian Vrăbiescu, and so on. The
details about the battles in Bulgaria also figure in the European press, notably
Belgian newspapers, which had correspondents on the ground (Indépendance
belge, Flandre libérale, L’Ami de l’ordre). The remainder of her information—on
the city of Bucharest and its surroundings—seems to come from the excellent

36  Trans. Stableford, 30. For the original French, see Cazacu, Dracula, 512.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 269

Guide du voyageur à Bucharest by the Frenchman Ulysse de Marsillac, a profes-

sor of the University of Bucharest.37
Despite our uncertainty regarding her possible travel to Romania, Marie
Nizet produced in Le Capitaine Vampire an outstanding work, very well situ-
ated in terms of its time and place. The novel’s plot stems as much from fan-
tasy as the history of the times, because the occupying Russian was generally
perceived as a vampire sucking the life force out of the Romanian people. In
his quality as a foreign aristocrat who had come to Romania, Marie Nizet’s hero
represents the missing link between the first noble vampires—Lord Ruthwen
in Polidori’s version, and Carmilla in Sheridan Le Fanu’s—and Stoker’s
Dracula invading England. Very much like Mary Shelley, who published her
Frankenstein in 1818 when she was barely twenty years old,38 Marie Nizet had
accomplished, at the same age, the feat of creating a character who would de-
cisively influence the development of a literary genre detached from ethnog-
raphy and anthropology.39

A Family History

After the publication of Captain Vampire, Marie Nizet’s interest in Romania

seems to have completely disappeared. After a short-lived marriage to a certain
Mercier, she laid down her pen and died forgotten in 1922.

37  This he published between 1875 and 1877, initially as installments in newspapers, and
then collected as De Pesth à Bucarest: Notes de voyage (Bucharest: s.n., 1869).
38  Radu Florescu, Alan G. Barbour, and Matei Cazacu, In Search of Frankenstein (Boston:
New York Graphic Society, 1975). The 2011 French version, Frankenstein, includes cor-
rections and new material (Paris: Tallandier). Cf. also Cazacu, “La Véritable histoire de
Frankenstein,” L’Histoire 200 (June 1996): 62–65.
39  On this subject, see the syntheses of Jean Marigny, Le Vampire dans la littérature anglo-
saxonne (Lille: Atelier national de reproduction des thèses, Université de Lille III, and
Paris: Diffusion Didier érudition, 1985), and Le Vampire dans la littérature du XXe siècle,
Bibliothèque de littérature générale et comparée, no. 38 (Paris: Champion, 2003)—a
fundamental work. Key titles in English include Margaret L. Carter, ed., The Vampire
in Literature: A Critical Bibliography, Studies in Speculative Fiction, No. 21 (Ann Arbor:
U.M.I. Research Press, 1989); Christopher Frayling, Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula
(London: Faber and Faber, 1991); Carol A. Senf, The Vampire in Nineteenth-Century
English Literature (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press,
1988); James B. Twitchell, The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature
(Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1981); and Heide Crawford, The Origins
of the Literary Vampire (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016).
270 CHAPTER 8

However, as with passing trains, one Nizet could hide another … After
Marie abandoned writing, her brother took up the torch, in surprising ways.
In 1883, barely nineteen years old, Henri took the road … to Romania! Tutor
to a young Moldavian from Fălticeni, a patriarchal town lost in the country’s
northern hills, he apparently was equally involved in representing commercial
interests in exploiting wood.40 In that same year 1883, he published his first
novel, Bruxelles rigole … Moeurs exotiques, which was influenced by natural-
ism, owing to Nizet’s genuine veneration for Zola. Through the life of a Greek
student in Brussels, Nizet paints an uncompromising, almost clinical picture
of the city, its entertainment places, and its cosmopolitism. One is struck here
by the author’s observational talent, and also his propensity for bringing the
ugliness and sordidness of various circumstances to the surface. The Belgian
literary critics were “shocked.”41 Not to spoil anything, the man was quite an
original:

[Nizet] is, to tell the truth, a barely likeable or sociable personality. He is

grouchy, gruff, even quite crude. With me he has always been very nice. I
like his forthrightness. His work, by the way, is enough to put him in my
good graces. We are finally leaving behind these petty little works and
juggleries which have encumbered us until now. Very amusing, after all,
this Nizet. A round figure with dirty blond hair, straight as a bayonet, with
two pale sideburns, a crooked and hooked nose, rather lively eyes behind
his spectacles, and always a little eccentrically dressed. Makes a specialty
of wearing vests up to his Adam’s apple. A large cane. Well built but dis-
tracted look. Talks rough, and often affects uncleanness. A skeptic, not
very talkative, feigning complete disillusionment, and never having had
but one friend, Mahutte, and hardy any comrades.42

Two years later, with Les Béotiens, Henri Nizet definitively proved his talent,
but also a biting sharp edge. The book caused a scandal and the author elicited
fierce animosity in the literary circles. Chilled by this experience, Nizet left for
Paris, traveled again to Romania, and, on returning to Belgium, published his

40  See the letter of the great Romanian folklorist Artur Gorovei (1864–1951) to Nicolae Iorga,
dated March 5, 1937. Note that Gorovei was a native of Fălticeni. Cf. Revista istorică 23,
nos. 4–6 (1937): 191.
41  Cited by Robert Trousson from an unpublished journal of Jules Destrée, in his preface to
the reprint of the novel Les Béotiens (Brussels: Académie royale de langue et de littérature
franc̦aises, 1993). The novel was again reprinted in 1994 in Brussels by Éditions Labor.
42  From Jules Destrée’s unpublished journal, as quoted by Robert Trousson, supra.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 271

last novel, Suggestion (1891).43 Following this, he produced a long essay entitled
L’Hypnotisme: Étude critique (1893), and then delivered a lecture at the Artistic
Circle of Brussels, the title of which summarizes his ideas: “L’Amour et la sug-
gestion.” He subsequently took refuge in journalism, and died in 1925, alone
and forgotten.
Henri Nizet’s last two books are a true revelation. With these we can follow
the track linking Le Capitaine Vampire to Stoker’s Dracula.
Suggestion is an autobiographical novel. Its key actor is young Paul Lebarrois,
an amoral bohemian, intelligent and cynical, who takes mental control of a
young Jewish woman evocatively named Séphorah. He aims to make her his
erotic slave. Having explored his various fantasies with Séphorah, he orders
her—through the power of suggestion—to commit suicide. Spellbound, she
obeys and dies from asphyxiation.
The novel’s setting is north of Bucovina, near the Galician border, not far
from the Borgo Pass. This exotic ambiance allows Nizet to exploit the theme of
popular beliefs, such as vampirism, as had his sister Marie:

The vampires were following her, and this she [Séphorah] attributed to
their fatal wounds. She threw herself into Paul’s arms, and he himself was
frightened. […] And she added, haunted by the oriental superstitions
which had terrorized her childhood: “If we knew where their tomb is, we
could drive a stake in their hearts and I would be free of this!”
Then, when she recovered her composure, she began telling stories
about things diabolical. Even centuries [after their deaths], vampires will
be found uncorrupted and intact in their coffins, from which they rise to
prowl by night. They seem to sleep, and the only way to escape from their
control is to nail them to the ground, driving a stake through their chest.44

Nizet deploys here the full extent of his scientific knowledge. He was in-
deed passionate about hypnotism and suggestion, in particular the works of
Joseph Delboeuf and Hippolyte Bernheim.45 Obsessed by the phenomenon
of thought transference, he participated in public hypnosis sessions, and
séances of an esoteric sciences study group. One evening, to the sound of

43  Henri Nizet, Suggestion (Paris: Tresse et Stock, 1891).

44  Ibid., 309–311.
45  Joseph-Remi-Leopold Delboeuf, Magnétiseurs et médecins (Paris: Germer Ballière et Cie.,
1890); H. Bernheim, De la suggestion dans l’état hypnotique et dans l’état de veille (Paris:
Octave Doin, 1884), and also Hypnotisme, suggestion, psychothérapie: Études nouvelles
(Paris: Octave Doin, 1891).
272 CHAPTER 8

Theban trumpets, this group laid a palm at the foot of a statue of Van Helmont
(1579–1644), the illustrious Flemish doctor who discovered carbonic gas and
hydrochloric acid.
The connections between Van Helmont and Van Helsing, and Henri Nizet
and Bram Stoker, seem probable. In carefully reading the last section of
Dracula, the following stands out quite forcefully. Mina Murray’s vampiriza-
tion does not simply signify her transformation into a vampire, as in the case of
Renfield and Lucy Westenra, but also her total subjection to Dracula, operating
through a process of thought transference. Proof here is what the count says
to her during her second vampirization, which is effectively her “baptism in
blood:”

And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood
of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall
be later on my companion and helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for
not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be
punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now
you shall come to my call. When my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall
cross land or sea to do my bidding …46

The following night, Mina asks Van Helsing to hypnotize her, so she can com-
municate, in a state of hypnotic trance, everything the count sees and feels.
Every day for an entire month Mina will be hypnotized like this, at the rising
and setting of the sun—“her times of peculiar freedom; when her old self can
be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or incit-
ing her to action.”47
Description of these séances alternates with the story of hunting down
the count, who returns to Transylvania by boat. And in this part of the
novel, the journals of Jonathan Harker and his companions abound with
clinical observations on Mina’s state, modeled on those of Dracula, which are
unmistakably reminiscent of Henri Nizet’s Suggestion. Consider here a mem-
orable hypnotic séance, conducted by a certain Ringaud on a young woman
responding to the name of Lucy … just like one of the protagonists in Dracula:

The hypnotist [Ringaud] placed his hand on the head of the subject,
whom he commanded to go take a chair and sit facing the wall, at the far

46  Bram Stoker’s Dracula Unearthed, ed. Leatherdale, 396–397.

47  Ibid., 448.
Dracula And Bram Stoker 273

end of the room. […] Lucy’s eyes were carefully covered with three layers
of handkerchiefs. […]
Then he addressed Lucy: “Sleep, he proclaimed imperiously. You will
respond to all the questions I am going to ask. I want you to know and
answer! It is necessary, you hear me!”48

Hypnotism, the suggestion and transmission of thought, plays a fundamen-

tal role in the composition of Bram Stoker’s novel. Dracula only hypnotizes
women, over whom he exercises complete power after the “baptism by blood”
which he inflicts on them. They obey totally and become his slaves, a situation
comparable to that of Paul Lebarrois and his victim in Suggestion. Stoker also
carefully followed Jean-Martin Charcot’s works on hypnotism of hysterics. He
cites him in the novel (Dr. Seward’s journal, September 26), and Charcot had
even visited the Lyceum Theater in the 1880s to see a Shakespeare play.49
Stoker is fascinated by Dracula’s sexual power which reduces other men’s
wives to slavery, just as Paul Lebarrois abducted Séphorah. As Judith Weissman
observed:

The difference between the sexuality of Dracula and the women vam-
pires is, I think, the key to the psychological meaning of the book. For
him, sex is power; for them, it is desire. He is the man whom all other
men fear, the man who can, without any loss of freedom or power him-
self, seduce other men’s women and make them sexually insatiable with
a sexual performance that the others cannot match.50

In summary, then, the sexual connotations in Stoker’s novel are strong, even if
they do not reach the peaks of Suggestion. But is this relationship between the
two works simply a coincidence, albeit understandable, given the preoccupa-
tion of that era with hypnotism? Here let us propose another filiation, which
we’ve seen with Le Capitaine Vampire, and that is the action of the hero himself
using his hypnotic power to subject or kill his victims.
If Captain Vampire fails in his attempt to secure Mariora’s submission, Paul
Lebarrois succeeds completely in his “experience” with Séphorah in 1891. And

48  Nizet, Suggestion, 168–169.

49  Maurice Hindle, “Introduction,” in Bram Stoker Dracula, ed. Hindle, xxxi.
50  Judith Weissman, “Women and Vampires: Dracula as a Victorian Novel,” in Dracula: The
Vampire and the Critics, ed. Margaret L. Carter, Studies in Speculative Fiction, no. 19 (Ann
Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1988), 76. Reprinted from Midwest Quarterly 18, no.
4 (1977): 392–405. Citation here is to the 1988 edition.
274 CHAPTER 8

some years later, Dracula transforms Lucy Westenra into a slave, but only half-
way succeeds with Mina Murray and is killed by the latter’s husband, just as
Liatoukin temporarily falls victim to Ion Isaesco. Can these truly be simple
coincidences?
On the other hand, when Paul Lebarrois orders his slave to commit suicide,
he leaves the vampiric context. Stoker could not have found this outcome in-
teresting. Except to approach it with the wish expressed by Mina, namely that
Jonathan kill her if “I am so changed that it is better that I die that I may live.”51

Billy the Kid Versus Dracula

From the beginning of the twentieth century, Stoker’s Dracula rapidly became
the very prototype of the vampire, a character who would come to enthrall
generations of readers. And the cinema, of course, would powerfully aid and
abet this dynamic process. Interest in vampires, however, was not continuous.
It was, rather, an ebb and flow shaped by a variety of events and influences—
political (world wars), scientific (the conquest of space, great discoveries), and
literary (publication of major works, always a key driver in reviving the genre).52
The first period in our overview runs down to around 1925, and was clearly
dominated by Europeans—English, French, Germans, and Belgians. This was
a kind of golden age in which Stoker published his last works, namely The Lady
of the Shroud (1909) and Dracula’s Guest (1914). France was part of this with
J. H. Rosny Sr.’s La Jeune Vampire (1920), which continued the genre inaugurated
by Théophile Gautier’s La Morte amoureuse (1836), and Gustave Le Rouge’s
La Guerre des vampires (1908).
At the end of 1925, vampirism made its attack on American literature, pitch-
ing to popular culture thanks to “pulp fiction” publications (i.e., on poor qual-
ity paper), such as Weird Tales (1924–1954). American omnipresence in this
literary genre was further strengthened with Everil Worrell’s The Canal (1927),
C. L. Moore’s Shambleau (1933), H. P. Lovecraft’s The Shunned House (1937), and
Robert Bloch’s The Cloak (1939). Parallel with that, European literature was los-
ing speed except for Gaston Leroux’s La Poupée sanglante (1930) and Mircea

51  Bram Stoker’s Dracula Unearthed, ed. Leatherdale, 450.

52  Excellent orientations in English to the genre of Dracula films are, first and foremost,
David J. Skal’s Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen,
rev. ed. (New York: Faber and Faber, Inc., 2004); and Lyndon W. Joslin’s Count Dracula Goes
to the Movies: Stoker’s Novel Adapted, 1922–1995 (Jefferson, North Carolina, and London:
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1999).
Dracula And Bram Stoker 275

Eliade’s Domnișoara Christina [Miss Christina] (1936). Two talented Romanian

novelists also tackled the genre: Cezar Petrescu in 1942 with Ochii strigoiului
[The Eyes of the Vampires] and Ion Agârbiceanu posthumously in 1968 with
Strigoiul [The Vampire].
World War II and the ensuing thirty years saw a sharp decline in the genre,
and a proliferation of film parodies such as Woody Allen’s Count Dracula
(1971), and Claude Klotz’s Paris Vampire (1974). Cheap novels inundated book
shops in Germany, England, and America, and Dracula—whose twins thus
far were only Frankenstein and The Werewolf—was now confronted with
Vampirella and Barnabas Collins. At the same time, the prince came face to
face on our movie screens with Abbott and Costello (1948), Hercule (1961),
Maciste (1962), and even Billy the Kid (1966)! This era likewise saw the first pub-
lications of anthologies on the vampire theme, with Elinore Blaisdell’s Tales
of the Undead (1947), followed by Ornella Volta and Valerio Riva’s Histoires de
Vampires (1961). And others churned forth, especially in the United States and
Great Britain.

A New Golden Age

A genuine turning point in the evolution of vampire literature occurred in

1976, with the publication Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire. This appeared
a few years after Radu R. Florescu/Raymond T. McNally published, literally in
tandem, two biographies of Dracula (1972 and 1973). With her depiction of a
vampire being interviewed and recorded on tape, Ann Rice revolutionized
the genre. Her hero Louis ceased being a demon and became a fellow man,
obsessed with the same passions and weaknesses as everybody else. As Bram
Stoker had done for the Victorian era, Ann Rice inaugurated the twenty-first
century vampire, a new golden age which called forth larger and larger circles
of readers.53
If Bram Stoker had created his vampire to leave his castle to conquer
England and the world, Ann Rice’s vampire conquered our hearts and imagi-
nation. Hundreds of novels and short stories were published in its wake, and
numerous fan clubs and associations of all sorts were born throughout the
entire world. In consequence, the vampire attained a new peak in popularity
in 1991 and 1996, the years just preceding, respectively, Francis Ford Coppola’s
epic film and the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Stoker’s novel.
After having been an anonymous peasant in the Carpathians, then a perverse

53  Marigny, Le Vampire dans la littérature du XX e siècle, 20.

276 CHAPTER 8

aristocrat, the vampire ended up by being transformed into a double, with

whom one might henceforth cohabitate, or even identify with.
But the success of Dracula was not limited to a novel being republished,
and translated into nearly all the languages of the world. Bram Stoker had
fashioned a theater version, Dracula, or the Living Dead, which opened in
1897 but without great success. Fame, on the other hand, would crown the ef-
forts of Hamilton Deane, an Irish actor and producer, like Stoker, who staged
his own Dracula in London in 1924. It was an immediate success. Adapted
for American taste by John L. Balderston, it triumphed on Broadway in 1927
and successfully played for two years. Hollywood immediately grabbed hold
of the play, and in 1931 the director Tod Browning launched Dracula onto the
silver screen. In his Dracula, the count was played by Bela Lugosi, born Bela
Blasko in Lugoj, in the Banat (i.e., the Romanian region located between the
southern Carpathians and the Danube). With Lugosi, the prince of vampires
took on a strong Hungarian accent, and was draped in an elegant black cape
which would accompany Lugosi to his grave in 1958, eight films later. A few
years earlier, in 1922, the rather disturbing Max Schreck played Dracula in the
guise of count Orlok (derived from vârcolac). Unable to pay Stoker’s widow to
obtain adaptation rights, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, the director, entitled his
film Nosferatu, or a Symphony of Horror. With its stunning formal beauty, the
gaunt silhouette of Count Orlok—who is by turns fragile and menacing, mo-
tionless and then everywhere at once—, the jerky rhythm of the action, and
the extreme starkness of the sets, this silent film is one of the great film clas-
sics. Murnau set the action in Wisborg (a fusion of Wismar and Lübeck), and
kept the three core characters but with name changes (i.e., Dracula, Jonathan
Harker, and Mina Murray appear respectively as Count Orlok, Thomas Hutter
and Ellen). In Murnau’s version, Mina/Ellen neutralizes the vampire, who had
set off an epidemic of plague in Wisborg, by giving herself to him one night
and encouraging the love intoxicated monster to linger with her until dawn,
when he is destroyed by the rising sun (fig. 27). And then this Mina/Ellen dies
in the arms of her fiancé (Jonathan Harker/Hutter), having saved the world.
Overall, Nosferatu was consonant with the reigning atmosphere in post-im-
perial Germany, where the failed dream of world domination was now lived
out in general human misery, and the artistic transfiguration of expressionism.
Count Orlok’s failure to enslave the world can be measured against Wilhelm
II’s catastrophic defeat, but the vampire at least had the consolation of expe-
riencing love. Although Nosferatu was legally condemned as plagiarism, and
all copies were supposed to be destroyed, Murnau’s film conquered London
and the United States, where it is esteemed as a brilliant adaptation of Stoker’s
novel. Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake, Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht—released
Dracula And Bram Stoker 277

in English as Nosferatu the Vampyre—, with Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani,
didn’t succeed in dethroning Murnau’s masterpiece. The two directors
had chosen to depict the vampire as bald, thin, and repulsive, with pointed
ears and long nails reminiscent of doctor Fu Manchu. Far from this austere
image, the American vampires and their European and South American
counterparts were, after 1931, handsome aristocrats: Count Mora in Tod
Browning’s The Mark of the Vampire, with Bela Lugosi (1935); Count Alucard
(Dracula reversed), in Robert Siodmak’s Son of Dracula, with Lon Chaney Jr.
(1943); Baron Latoes, in Erle C. Kenton’s House of Dracula, with John Carradine
(1944); Baron Meinster in Terence Fischer’s The Brides of Dracula, with David
Peel (1960); Count Frankenhausen, in Miguel Morayta’s El Vampiro Sangriento
(1961), with Carlos Agosti; Count Sinistre, in Lance Comfort’s Devils of Darkness
(1965), with Hubert Noel; and finally, Bob Jelljan’s Count Yorga (which recalls
the name of the great Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga), in Count Yorga the
Vampire, with Robert Quarray (1970).
None of these vampires had Bela Lugosi’s commanding presence until
Christopher Lee made his “nocturnal” appearance on the screen throughout
the two decades from 1958 to 1976, beginning with Terence Fisher’s Horror of
Dracula (1958), and ending with Édouard Molinaro’s Dracula, pere et fils (1976).
Lee also appeared in Calvin Floyd’s 1972 documentary, which was filmed in
Romania, entitled In Search of Dracula. This was effectively a cinematographic
pendant to Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally’s best seller, In Search of
Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires. In Floyd’s film, Lee plays the role
of Vlad the Impaler, and his transformation into a vampire is discrete.
Since 1931, for better or for worse, Dracula has been “cooked” in all possible
cinematographic sauces. He’s been accompanied by family members (chil-
dren, fiancées, distant progeny), werewolves, and ghouls. Often, the vampire is
a mad scientist, like Doctor Carruthers in Jean Yarbrough’s The Devil Bat, with
Bela Lugosi (1940); Doctor Lloyd Clayton in Sam Newfield’s Dead Men Walk—
also known under the titles The Vampire, and Creatures of the Devil —, with
George Zucco (1943); or Doctor Callistratus in Henry Cass’s Blood of the
Vampire, with Sir Donald Wolfit (1958). He can also be a magician, as in Phil
Rosen’s Spooks Run Wild, with Bela Lugosi (1941); or an extraterrestrial, as in
Christian Nyby’s The Thing from Another World (1951), or Sidney Salkow’s The
Last Man on Earth (1964); a communist agent who’s come in from the cold, as
in Bob Kelljan’s Count Yorga the Vampire (1970); or a descendent of Dracula
who himself becomes a vampire, as in H. G. Lewis’s A Taste of Blood (1967). The
vampire’s nationality can be global, appearing as African in Lesley Selander’s
The Vampire’s Ghost (1945); Greek in Mark Robson’s Isle of Dead (1945); English
in J. Gilling’s Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952); Turkish in Mehmed
278 CHAPTER 8

Muktar’s Drakula Istanbulda [Dracula in Istanbul] (1953); American in Paul

Landres’ The Vampire (1957); Mexican in Fernando Mendez’s El Vampiro (1959);
and French in Roger Vadim’s Et mourir de plaisir (1960).
For popularizing the myth of the vampire, Roman Polanski’s 1967 The
Fearless Vampire Killers merits special mention. Played by Jack MacGowran
(Professor Abronsius), Roman Polanski (Alfred), Alfie Bass (Shagal), Sharon
Tate (Sarah), Jessie Robins (Rebecca), and Christopher Lee (count von Krolock),
it contains all the ingredients of horror films but is scripted on a lighter note,
above all in the great scene depicting a ball in Dracula’s castle.
In this considerable collection of vampire films, there are few successful
adaptations of Stoker’s novel. Only Murnau (1922) and Werner Herzog (1979),
Todd Browning (Dracula, 1931) and Terence Fisher (The Horror of Dracula,
1958), took up the challenge with credible results. In 1992, however, Francis Ford
Coppola radically renewed the genre with his Bram Stoker’s Dracula, an abso-
lute masterpiece. A goodly number of critics has considered the performances
of the key actors—Gary Oldman (Dracula), Anthony Hopkins (Van Helsing),
Wynona Ryder (Mina Murray), and Keanu Reeves (Jonathan Harker)—as quite
simply perfect. Whether as count vampire or London dandy, Gary Oldman’s
presence throughout the film is incredibly intense. The costumes are incompa-
rably glamorous,54 and the music likewise contributes to making this produc-
tion a pinnacle of achievement as yet unrivaled.
Fortunately for us and our scholarly labors, vampires have not waited for
contemporary literature or cinema to be … the talk of the town.

54  On the costumes, and the director’s and designer’s visions of their significance, see
Francis Ford Coppola and Eiko Ishioka, Coppola and Eiko on Bram Stoker’s Dracula (San
Francisco, Calif.: Collins Publishers San Francisco, 1992), with lavish photographs.
 CHAPTER 9

The Vampire in Romania

The vampire made its official appearance in Romanian society in the middle
of the seventeenth century, in Moldavia in 1644 and Wallachia in 1652. In
Transylvania, an autonomous principality but tributary to the Turks since the
sixteenth century, the first possible case dealing with vampires was recorded
in 1521 in Brașov, but the document is problematic. It concerns a woman called
a strigoaie whom a court ordered to be burned. But we cannot prove she was
deemed a vampire, since in Hungarian legal codes from the eleventh century
onwards, the term is also used to refer to sorcerers, striga. In any event, the
punishments for “striges” were the same as for “meretrices” (courtesans, then
prostitutes), which is standard in medieval texts.1
In the case of Moldavia, it’s important to note that it was above all the hier-
archy of the Orthodox church that was concerned with this problem. In 1645,
metropolitan Varlaam of Moldavia published a work entitled Șapte taine ale
Bisericii [The Seven Sacraments of the Church] in which he is indignant about
a certain kind of death:

The people say that [the cause of this] is vârcolac. […] This is here the talk
of simple [ignorant] people, because it is impossible that the dead are
transformed into vârcolac. […] These people go to the tomb and exhume
the remains of [the deceased] to see how they appear. And if they affirm
that the body has blood, nails, and hair [which is growing], since they
[last] saw him, […] they collect wood, make a fire, and burn the remains
until nothing is left.2

The chronicler William of Newburgh describes how English and Scottish

peasants dealt with vampires—in Melrose Abbey in Berwick, Roxburghshire

1  Stephani I regis decretorum liber secundus, c. 31: De strigibus; Ladislae I regis decretorum, liber
primus, c. 34: De satisfactione meretricum vel strigarum. Both in Márkus, ed., Magyar törvény-
tár […] 1000–1526. évi törvényczikkek, pp. 34 and 60.
2  Nicolae Cartojan, Istoria literaturii române vechi [History of old Romanian literature]
(Bucharest: “Minerva,” 1980), 196. For a more recent edition and study of this important text,
see Iulia Mazilu, Șeapte taine a besearecii (Iași, 1644): Ediţie critică și studiu filologico-lingvistic
[The Seven Sacraments of the Church (Iași, 1644): critical edition and philological-linguistic
study], Fontes Traditionis (Iași: Editura Universităţii “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași, 2012).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_010

280 CHAPTER 9

and other places. His evidence begins in 1196, and it’s interesting to note that
these peasants’ approach to vampires is identical to what we found with their
Moldavian counterparts.3 In only one of the four cases William describes do
the inhabitants summon ecclesiastical intervention, i.e., by addressing the
bishop of Lincoln. The latter consulted knowledgeable priests and renowned
theologians, who informed him that the case was not at all isolated, and cited
other instances which had occurred in England. They all advised him to have
the vampire (sanguisuga, in Latin) cremated. The bishop, the future Saint
Hugh of Lincoln (1135–1200), did not accept this solution, which he adjudged
“indecent and undignified,” and ordered a chartula of absolution placed on
the chest of the deceased. The dead man then ceased harassing the living. This
case is instructive, and we shall later see how the Orthodox Church similarly
acted, with varying degrees of success.

How to Proceed with a Strigoi

Metropolitan Varlaam was an erudite theologian and a fine preacher, who

authored numerous works, one of which was a refutation of the Calvinist
catechism published in Romanian. Since the second half of the sixteenth cen-
tury, the Calvinist princes of Transylvania were trying to convert the Orthodox
population of Romania to Protestantism. Orthodoxy was tolerated, but the
priests had to officiate in Romanian, and refrain from using Slavic. A Calvinist
intendant controlled the Romanian Orthodox metropolitanate and prohibited
worship of the Virgin and the saints, use of icons and paintings, and fasts and
various Romanian festivals and customs, which he considered superstitions
and aberrations. In 1640, the intendant Stephen Katona de Galej submitted to
the Transylvanian prince George Rákóczy I a list of “conditions” for reform-
ing the Wallachians. Among these was the directive that the Orthodox bishop
should forbid superstitious practices occurring at funerals, such as “placing sil-
ver, or food, or other kinds of objects in the coffin,” burning candles in the cem-
etery, and, above all, “urging the souls of the dead to manifest themselves and

3  William of Newburgh, ed. Hamilton, vol. 2, 182–190. English translation in Montague Summers,
The Vampire in Europe (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, 1929), 79–88. Cf. also Jean
Claude Schmitt, Les revenants: Les vivants et les morts dans la société médiévale, Bibliothèque
des histoires (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 102–103, and most recently Nancy Mandeville Caciola,
Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London: Cornell University
Press, 2016), 217–219.
The Vampire In Romania 281

communicating with them.”4 Varlaam understood that this last accusation of

the Calvinists was justified. Thus he condemned belief in vampires in his Șapte
taine ale Bisericii, and had this condemnation included in the 1646 collection
of Moldavian law. From here, most probably, it passed into the 1652 Wallachian
law code, the relevant rubric of which is as follows:

Chapter 378. On the subject of the dead who will be revealed as strigoi,
called vârcolac, how to proceed.
Certain ignorant people say that often when men die, a good number
of them rise up [from their tombs], to become strigoi and kill the living.
Yet death comes unexpectedly and quickly for many people, and nobody
knows when, save our Lord Jesus Christ, the guardian of our being. […]
Oh! how amazing that the dead should kill the living! Oh! Ignorance and
blindness of the unfortunates who don’t see here the work of the devil
who deceives them, so that they burn the bodies of their kind in order to
hasten them to hell! Other madmen slander and assert that a good number
of bodies are buried and never rot, but remain whole, gorged with blood.
This is a diabolical illusion, as we have said, because the devil can take on
all forms, and can appear in the shape of an angel, a monk, a layman, a
man or woman, a child, as wood, as sticks, as water, as blood, as a celestial
body, as a garment, as a body, and can be transformed into anything, but
this is an illusion. Thus, you cannot believe what you see in the dead body,
because a man, once dead, has no blood in his body. It is even more amaz-
ing to note that some claim that a body buried for several days contains
blood. Know that a body shown to be with blood is a diabolical illusion5

These texts make it amply clear that, at this time, belief in the existence of
vampires was widespread in the three Romanian lands. The legal sources do
not explain precisely how vampires were supposedly killing the living, and for
that we must wait until 1709, when an epidemic of plague struck Transylvania.
Its victims numbered in the thousands. On this occasion, an erudite Hungarian

4  Imre Révész, “La Réforme et les Roumains de Transylvanie,” Archivum Europae centro-
orientalis 3 (1937): 305. For the wider context, see Erich Roth, Die Reformation in Siebenbürgen:
Ihr Verhältnis zu Wittenberg und der Schweiz, 2 vols., Siebenbürgisches Archiv, Series 3,
vols. 2, 4 (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 1962–1964); Ludwig Binder, Grundlagen und Formen
der Toleranz in Siebenbürgen bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts, Siebenbürgisches Archiv =
Archiv des Vereins für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde, Dritte Folge, vol. 11 (Cologne and
Vienna: Böhlau, 1976); and Krista Zach, “Zur Geschichte der Konfessionen in Siebenbürgen
im 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert,” Südostdeutsches Archiv 24–25 (1981–1982): 40–89.
5  Rădulescu et al., eds. Îndreptarea legii, 1652, Glava 378, pp. 351–353.
282 CHAPTER 9

doctor, Sámuel Köleséri, published his Pestis Dacicae anni 1709 scrutinum et
cura [Study of and remedy for the 1709 plague in Dacia].6 At the very outset,
Köleséri observes that the Transylvanian Romanians attributed the epidemic
to the works of the devil (ope Diaboli) and revenants. These revenants were
considered to be the deceased, who had been transformed into vampires. The
word “vampire” is not explicitly used, but it is implicit. Köleséri provides spe-
cific information about what happened at the Romanian village of Broșteni,
in the center of the country. There some thirty-four people died of the plague.
Subsequently a man, two women, and a young girl were suspected of vam-
pirism, and the mayor and village elders had them exhumed. They were then
reburied with their faces turned to the earth, and were pierced with a stake.
However, the epidemic still did not stop. On the other hand, in the neighboring
village of Păuca, the plague ended after the same procedure had been applied
to an old woman and her granddaughter. Köleséri recorded similar cases in the
villages of Bobâlna (Bábolna) and Cisteiu (Oláh Csestre), where an Orthodox
priest had also been exhumed and impaled. Thus, in four Romanian villages
of Transylvania, eight people suspected of being vampires and transmitting
plague had been exhumed, impaled, and reburied. But there’s no indication
that their bodies were cremated.
It’s worth observing that, in the seventeenth century, it is only during
epidemics of the plague that the dead were suspected of being vampires.
Consequently, references to cases of vampirism often coincide with waves
of pestilence, notably in 1660–1664,7 1717–1718,8 1738–1740,9 1742–1743,10 1769–
1772,11 1784–1786,12 1792,13 1812–1813,14 and 1828–1830.15

6  Described by Dr. Andrei Veress, on the basis of the only surviving exemplar, in Bibliografia
română-ungară [Romanian-Hungarian bibliography], vol. 1, Românii in literatura ungară și
Ungurii in literatura română, 1473–1780 [Romanians in Hungarian literature and Hungarians
in Romanian literature 1473–1780] (Bucharest: Cartea romaneasca, 1931), 156, no. 282.
7  Thus, on September 19, 1662, the Prince of Transylvania, Mihail I Apafi, ordered the captain
of Alba Iulia to forbid the Romanian priests of Deva from performing ceremonies involv-
ing “magical spells and superstitions,” on grounds that these were “contrary to Christian
customs.”
8  See the case of the Wallachian village of Mărul, Gorj county, on which an epidemic of plague
fell between November 1717 and April 1718, as described in an Austrian report published by
Klaus Hamberger, Mortuus non mordet: Kommentierte Dokumente zum Vampirismus 1689–
1791 (Wien: Turia und Kant, 1992), 87–88.
9  When the Prince of Wallachia, Constantin Mavrocordat, became apprised of “diabolical”
practices and “acts of witchcraft” which peasants and lesser boyars in certain villages were
performing to chase away “the evil spirit of the plague,” he ordered their prefects and mayors
to curtail such activities, and punish the guilty. Priests complicit in these practices were to be
sent before ecclesiastical tribunals. See Konstantinos Dapontes, ed. and trans. Legrand, 38,
The Vampire In Romania 283

43, 150–153, 161–162. Also Francisc Papp, “Descrierea ciumei 1738–1740 in Banat după
Anton v. Hammer [Anton v. Hammer’s description of the 1738–1740 plague in the Banat]”
(PhD diss., Universitatea “Regele Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de
Istoria medicinei și farmaciei și folklor medical, 1932).
10  Béla Jancsó, “Date nouă despre epidemia de ciumă din 1742–43 in Ardeal (Erdély) [New
data on the 1742–1743 plague epidemic in Transylvania]” (PhD diss., Universitatea “Regele
Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria medicinei și farmaciei și
folklor medical, 1933). Also see the 1746 vampire case in Sebeș, in Friedrich Müller, Beiträge
zur Geschichte des Hexenglaubens und des Hexenprocesses in Siebenbürgen (Braunschweig:
C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1854), 44, 49. Twelve years after the 1742–1743 epidemic another
wave of plague afflicted Transylvania, although relevant reports do not record instances
of vampirism in connection with these outbreaks. Nonetheless, this episode (1755–1757)
is memorable owing to the eye-witness account of Adam Chenot, who was serving at
that time as a “contagion physician,” initially at Sibiu and later in Brașov. A decade later
Chenot published his memoirs and medical findings in a work entitled Tractatus de peste
(Vienna: Typis Jo. Thom., 1766). On Chenot, see recently Sabine Jesner, “The Physician
Adam Chenot – Reshaping Plague Control in the Austrian Cordon Sanitaire (Approx.
1770–1780),” Banatica 25 (2015): 283–300.
11  Livia Armean, “J. F. C. Hecker despre ciuma în sudestul Europei în anii 1769–1772
[J. C. F. Hecker on the plague in southeastern Europe in the years 1769–1772]” (PhD diss.,
Universitatea “Regele Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria
medicinei și farmaciei și folklor medical, 1933); Margareta Luka, “Observaţiile doctoru-
lui I. M. Minderer despre ciuma și alte epidemii in Moldova in cursul războiului ruso-
turc 1769–1774 [Dr. I. M. Minderer’s observations on the plague and other epidemics in
Moldavia during the 1769–1774 Russo-Turkish war]” (PhD diss., Universitatea “Regele
Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria medicinei și farmaciei și
folklor medical, 1934).
12  Emperor Joseph II’s decree of October 23, 1784, ordering Romanian priests to fight against
customs and superstitions connected with strigoi and moroaie (cf. Daniel Dumitran,
Un timp al reformelor: Biserica Greco-Catolică din Transilvania sub conducerea episcopu-
lui Ioan Bob [1782–1830] [A time of reforms: the Greco-Catholic Church of Transylvania
under the leadership of bishop Ioan Bob (1782–1830)], 2nd ed., Seria Documente, isto-
rie mărturii, ed. Nicolae Bocșan [Cluj-Napoca: Argonaut, 2007], 85, and note 194 for rel-
evant quotes from the decree); Prince Mihail Șuţu (Soutzos) of Wallachia’s letters dated
December 10, 1783 and August 8, 1785 to the inhabitants of Gorj county to fight against su-
perstitions, as well as the pastoral letter and letter of bishop Philaretos (Filaret) of Râmnic
to archpriest John, also from Gorj county, ordering the same thing (Bucharest, Biblioteca
Academiei Române, ms. rom. 2100, ff. 109vo–110vo and 240vo–244vo); Prince Mihail’s letter
of April 17, 1785 to the authorities and inhabitants of the five counties of Oltenia regarding
exhumation of the dead, and strigoi, in Dolj and Mehedinţi counties, published by Vasile
A. Urechia, Istoria Romaniloru, vol. 1, 1774–1786 (Bucharest: Lito-Tipografia C. Goebl, 1891),
401–402; and Olimpiu Morariu, “Un medic luxemburghez în Ardeal: André Etienne [A
Luxemburgian doctor in Transylvania: André Étienne” (PhD diss., Universitatea “Regele
Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria medicinei și farmaciei și
folklor medical, 1935).
284 CHAPTER 9

At the end of 1831, plague was replaced by cholera. In this year, a woman
considered to be a strigoaie was exhumed in the village of Joseni, in the county
of Hunedoara. After this incident, the village priest, who was present in the
cemetery during this operation, was defrocked on orders of the Romanian
Orthodox bishop of Sibiu. The latter sent notice to the archpriests of his dio-
cese ordering them to go “into each church and preach to the people not to
believe in vampires [strigoi] and not to exhume the dead, because in this way
cholera spreads further, as has already been seen in the village Turdașu.”16
Similar cases were recorded in Transylvania during later cholera epidemics,
in 1840 and 1866.17

13  Ilie Olteanu, “Despre veracitatea majorităţii știrilor asupra ciumei din Moldova și
Muntenia, de Dr. Martin Lange (1792) [Dr. Martin Lange, on the credibility of the major-
ity of reports on the plague in Moldavia and Muntenia (1792)]” (PhD diss., Universitatea
“Regele Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria medicinei și farma-
ciei și folklor medical, 1932). On these plague epidemics, see also Paul Cernovodeanu and
Paul Binder, Cavalerii apocalipsului: Calamitățile naturale din trecutul României (până la
1800) [The horsemen of the apocalypse: natural calamities in Romania’s past (down to
1800)] (Bucharest: Silex, 1993).
14  Gh. Ionescu,” O descriere germană a ciumei din București in anul 1813 [A German descrip-
tion of the plague in Bucharest in 1813]” (PhD diss., Universitatea “Regele Ferdinand I,”
Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria medicinei și farmaciei și folklor medi-
cal, 1936). In addition the testimony of Michael Kosmeli, Harmlose Bemerkungen auf einer
Reise über Petersburg, Moskau, Kiew nach Jassy (Berlin: Schüppel, 1822), who records the
belief that some of those who died from plague came forth from their tombs and became
vârcolaci (cited by Nicolae Iorga in his Istoria românilor prin călători, original 1928–1929
edition republished with introduction and notes by Adrian Anghelescu [Bucharest:
Editura Eminescu, 1981], 465). For a Romanian translation of the key passage in Kosmeli,
see Cernovodeanu, ed., Călători străini despre Ţările Române în secolul al XIX-lea, vol. 1,
787.
15  Ana Serdoliuc, “Epidemia de ciumă din 1828–30 in Moldova și Muntenia după descrierea
autorilor medicali ruși contimporani [The plague epidemic of 1828–1830 in Moldavia
and Munetian as described by contemporary Russian doctors]” (PhD diss., Universitatea
“Regele Ferdinand I,” Cluj, Facultatea de Medicină, Institutul de Istoria medicinei și
farmaciei și folklor medical, 1933).
16  Ion Muslea, “Practice magice și denumirea lor în circularele episcopești și protopopești
de la începutul veacului trecut [Magical practices and their designation in the circulars
of bishops and archpriests from the beginning of the last century],” Anuarul Arhivei de
folclor 2 (1933): 159–160.
17  Ibid., 161–162. And also see the unsigned article “Colera alungata prin acte de credintia
desiérata [Cholera expelled through miraculous acts of faith],” Telegraful român [Sibiu],
October 30 (November 11), 1866, No. 86, Anno 14, p. 344.
The Vampire In Romania 285

Let’s also note that, on the night of September 18–19, 1846, the body of a
vampire was exhumed in the village of Meteș, in central Transylvania. The
villagers were convinced that the fumes from his heart were causing cattle to
sicken and die. Once the corpse was brought into daylight, the shroud envelop-
ing it was burned, and the village cows were made to pass through this smoke.18
Plague, cholera, sickness of cattle … Vampires were also blamed for drought.
In the summer of 1841, during an intense heat wave, the tomb of a recently
deceased peasant, Ilie Nini, of the village of Porumbacul de Jos, in the region of
Făgăraș, was the scene of a curious ceremony. The assembled villagers pushed
stakes into the ground, pulled them out, and then twelve young girls poured
water into the holes to drown the vampire. Finally, in the presence of a priest,
men exhumed the corpse and cut it into pieces.19
Let’s cite, finally, two further cases associating the dead with weather phe-
nomena. In 1872, a Bucharest newspaper article alluded to Transylvanian
peasants’ superstitious belief that if someone passes with a dead body near a
crop-laden field, hail will result. And in 1885, a Sibiu newspaper reported that,
in a southern Transylvanian village, a man who had been hung was exhumed
and then thrown into a river to bring about rain!20

The Vampire’s Identity Card

Even if the foregoing evidence is only a fraction of an enormous dossier, these

cases of belief in vampires are eloquent. Indeed, it can be said without any
exaggeration that the territory of present day Romania provides the fullest
available documentation on the phenomenon in east-central and southeast-
ern Europe. They represent many voices and backgrounds. They include, first
of all, Hungarians and Germans in Transylvania—Catholics, Calvinists, and
Lutherans—who regarded these beliefs as heresies and aberrations, peculiar
to a population preserving an archaic way of life and customs. Next we have
the Austrian authorities who occupied Transylvania as of 1686, and sought to

18  B. J., “Hátszegvidékről. Metesd Sept 19 [The Hateg Region. Dispatched Sept 19],” Erdélyi
Híradó [Cluj], October 18, 1846, no. 188, p. 665.
19  László Kőváry, Erdélyország statistikája [Statistics of Transylvania], vol. 1 (Cluj: Tilsch
János tulajdona, 1847), 291.
20  Unsigned, “Cadavru furat [Stolen corpse],” Pressa [Bucharest], April 6, 1872, no. 78,
anno 5, pp. 5–6; Unsigned, “(Superstiţiuni)—Cetim următoarele in ‘Gazeta Buzeului’
[Superstitions—from (an article in) Gazeta Buzeului],” Telegraful român [Sibiu], May 30
(June 11), 1885, no. 57, anno 33, p. 228.
286 CHAPTER 9

educate their Romanian subjects. Finally there were many travelers who came
and observed the Wallachians from their differing perspectives, sometimes
with genuine interest, and sometimes with contempt. Some sought to tran-
scribe faithfully what they had seen and heard during their stay, while a few
others actually tried to understand and explain what seemed mysterious to
them. And so we are obliged to these foreign witnesses for the best descriptions
of cases of vampirism, and likewise to a handful we are indebted for deeper
explanations vis-à-vis these beliefs. In what circumstances does one become a
vampire and why? Who were they? Was it by accident or a true calling that one
became a vampire? The aforementioned sources provide no answers to these
questions. In each case, we find a village community decreeing that so and so
might well be the vampire responsible for an epidemic, or drought, or hail. But
on what grounds was that decision made? What was the visible evidence on
which this conviction was based?
The explanation most widely invoked by the Romanians was religious. We
find it expressed with great vigor and intelligence by the Ragusan Ignazio
Stefano Raicevich (1739–after 1792), who had spent eleven years in Wallachia
and Moldavia. Born an Ottoman subject, a doctor in medicine, and in turn
merchant, secretary to the Wallachian prince, and then Austrian official agent
in the Romanian principalities, Raicevich knew the land and its people very
well. His work, Osservazioni storiche, naturali e politiche intorno la Valachia e
la Moldavia [Historical, Natural, and Political Observations on Wallachia and
Moldavia] is one of the very best available on the subject. A section of his chap-
ter on “Religion, Tolerance, Schools and Hospitals” is particularly interesting:

One of the most ridiculous theatrical displays, and one useful to the
priests, is that of vampires. They claim that a body which does not rot
on the spot retains a form of life. [And they also claim] that the soul
has not separated from the body and cannot do so, if, during his life, the
individual had incurred some sort of ecclesiastical excommunication,
unofficially or explicitly. [And they further claim] that during the night
the body leaves the tomb to cause all possible harm to the living. The
first sign of this is that the earth which covers the body is displaced.
The priest, then his wife, and then the whole village, being the most
exposed, begin to spread the word and call upon the relatives of the
deceased to pay the priest to exhume the body and deliver it from excom-
munication. If the body is intact, it is placed upright against a wall, and
often crumbles to dust when the priest exorcises it. If, on the other hand,
it remains standing, the witnesses intensify their cries and complaints
because they are persuaded that his excommunication is of a great
The Vampire In Romania 287

importance. Consequently, a higher priest or even a bishop who usual-

ly performs the miracle is summoned. Since nobles are buried in stone
tombs, they probably don’t have the pleasure of becoming vampires, and
their bodies are never exposed to this misfortune. Those who are most
frequently exposed are police captains and food merchants, men loathed
by the people, who probably leave behind ill acquired goods which it is
only fair to share with the priests after their death.
Nothing is more remarkable or repeated more often than a public
oath. When two people are in litigation with no proof on either side, ei-
ther the judge or the litigants demand a solemn oath. The concerned par-
ties then go to the metropolitan church where they swear an oath before
the priest, with their hand on an image of the Virgin. The perjurer should
be excommunicated on the spot, and it is more than likely that some in-
dividuals have been in this situation more than once in their life, and that
the priests are compelled to declare them vampires. To deliver the poor
Wallachians and Moldavians from this terrible misfortune, the Greek pa-
triarchs have used their apostolic authority to grant a plenary indulgence
to the faithful, [resulting in] the absolution of all sins, and annulment
of the excommunication which they could have incurred voluntarily or
involuntarily during their lifetime.
At the end of the last century, the patriarch of Jerusalem went to
Wallachia and Moldavia to visit numerous convents and patriarchal
properties. In the course of his stay, he consoled the faithful by distribut-
ing, along with indulgences, a printed sheet which served both for the
living and the dead, and which could be buried with them. Blessed was
he that could obtain from the patriarch the celebration of a solemn mass
for the peace of the souls of his ancestors! However, very few enjoyed
this favor, because the patriarchal mass cost ten zecchini. Meanwhile the
patriarch was continually occupied saying masses during the two years in
which he honored the two provinces with his presence.
So as not to deprive the poor of such a great advantage, the secretary
of the patriarch distributed these printed sheets in exchange for alms
for the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, which [ended up in] the hands of
the patriarch. The smallest was a half florin. I have read a letter written
by the [patriarchal] secretary [and dispatched] from Iași, to a bishop of
Bucharest, in which he told him that, thank God, His Holiness was greatly
satisfied to find such fervor in the faithful of Moldavia. [And he further
told him that] all [the faithful] had competed to snatch away the printed
indulgences from their hands. He entreated [the bishop] to have several
thousand more printed by the diocesan press at a modest price.
288 CHAPTER 9

Not only does one kiss the hand of a bishop, but he is treated with
something akin to adoration by people who prostrate themselves before
him. I have seen the most distinguished ladies following this tradition.
They are hailed as saints, very holy, very pure, etc. Their vices and their
sins are known to all, but they are so highly venerated that no one dare
say anything for fear of excommunication. It does not seem to me out of
place to recount here an adventure which was told to me in all candor
by the person to whom it occurred. A wealthy Greek from Ioannina, em-
ployed in Constantinople in the affairs of the two principalities, was jailed
on the order of the sultan Mustapha in the formidable prison called the
Oven. Notwithstanding the anxieties of his situation and the torments
he endured, all his thoughts and desires were turned towards his favorite
horse whom he had not ceased to care for or concern himself with from
the depths of his dungeon, and who was the first object of his affection
when he had recovered his liberty. A short time after, as he was preparing
to return to his homeland, a bishop from Asia who was, at the same time,
going to visit his diocese, sent the Greek his deacon to ask for the horse as
a gift. The request seemed very strange to the man who politely refused
on grounds of the affection he felt for his horse and the urgent need he
had for it. A short time later the bishop appeared in person and told him
he would be cursed unless he gave him the horse as a gift. The surprised
Greek gave in to the bishop, although he knew of his injustice and bad
temper. He admitted that he didn’t have the courage to expose himself
to his ire.21

We have here a remarkable source for the history of mentalities. It describes

a situation valid from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, in which the
Orthodox Church attempted to shift, and to a certain degree succeeded in
shifting, a complex of archaic beliefs regarding the afterlife away from its prim-
itive meaning. This phenomenon was especially significant in Wallachia and
Moldavia, whereas in Transylvania cases of vampirism are never linked with
ecclesiastical excommunication.

The Christianization of Vampirism

How did it come about that vampirism was Christianized? The model came
from Constantinople where, after the Ottoman conquest, sultan Mehmed II

21  
Osservazioni, 234–241; trans. Lejeune, 131–135.
The Vampire In Romania 289

had invested the Greek patriarch Gennadios Scholarios with authority over all
the Christians of the empire. The Muslims categorized the minorities of their
empire solely in terms of religion, and consequently placed them under the
authority of their religious heads. The sultan had accorded the patriarch and
episcopal synod judicial authority over marriages, divorces, tutelage of minors,
wills, and successions. The ecclesiastic tribunals which sat in each diocese
could judge commercial affairs if the two parties were Christians. The patri-
arch was even authorized to levy taxes to benefit the Church. On the other
hand, he was responsible vis-à-vis the Ottoman authorities for the loyalty of
the Christian subjects of the empire. However, the only weapon the patri-
arch of Constantinople and the Greek Orthodox bishops possessed to compel
Christians to obey, or to inflict punishment, was anathema—called aphoris-
mos in Greek, or excommunication.22
Since Mehmed II didn’t understand this concept, he once asked the Orthodox
theologians to provide him an explanation. The patriarch of Constantinople,
Maximos III Christonymos (1476–1482), presented the case of a woman who
had slandered his predecessor Gennadios Scholarios, who excommunicated
her. Meanwhile, the woman died of dysentery. When her corpse was exhumed,
it was intact, but black and inflated “like a drum.” It was then transported to a
chapel in the patriarchal church of Constantinople, where the patriarch per-
formed a rite lifting the ban of excommunication. Thereupon the body mi-
raculously decomposed, and those present could even hear bones cracking.23
This simple law of physics, used wisely, confirmed the supreme authority of
the Orthodox Church, with its ability to grant pardon to sinful souls, as well as
condemn them to become vampires.
Theological justification for the power of excommunication derives from a
passage in the Gospel of Matthew (18:15–18), where Jesus confers on the apos-
tles the power to bind and loose all things, and thus also sins:

If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him
alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back
your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you:
the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain any charge.
But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he

22  Papadopoullos, Studies and Documents, 27–39; Steven Runciman, The Great Church in
Captivity: A Study of the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the Eve of the Turkish conquest
to the Greek War of Independence (London: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 166–177.
23  Historia Patriarchica Constantinopoleos, ed. Crusius, 132–136. Also Ecthesis Chronica and
Chronicon Athenarum, ed. Lambros, sub anno 1476.
290 CHAPTER 9

refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a pagan or a tax collec-
tor. I tell you solemnly, whatever you bind on earth shall be considered
bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed
in heaven.24

The Orthodox Church’s interpretation of this is surprising. Excommunication

binds the sinful soul to the body and prohibits its separation after death. Thus,
as long as the anathema remains unlifted, the body does not decompose and
the soul, its prisoner, is condemned to wander by night seeking pardon. In
other words, a vampire is born. And since the Orthodox Church doesn’t ac-
cept the existence of purgatory, there is no other mechanism for the soul to
obtain pardon and attain release from the body. This “ultimate weapon” was
used for the first time in Wallachia in 1592, by the patriarch of Constantinople
Jeremias II. The object of litigation might seem trivial—demarcation of prop-
erties of a convent on which neighbors had encroached—but the simple act of
threatening the offenders produced the desired effect.25
In consequence of numerous stays and visits of Greek patriarchs, metro-
politans, and bishops in the Romanian lands throughout the following centu-
ries, the Orthodox hierarchy of Wallachia and Moldavia adopted the practice
of excommunication for bearing false witness. It was common opinion,
however—and this detail is very important—that a priest’s prayers would suf-
fice to lift this terrible spiritual punishment.26 According to the Patriarchate of

24  The Jerusalem Bible, gen. ed. Jones, 44.

25  The letter was published by T. Bălășel, “Trei carţi de blestem patriarhicești [Three patriar-
chal letters of excommunication],” Arhivele Olteniei 15 (1937): 62 (nos. 89–91); commentary
by Alexandru Elian, “Legăturile mitropoliei Ungrovlahiei cu patriarhia de Constantinopol
și su celelalte biserici ortodoxe: A.—De la întemeiere pînă la 1800 [Relations between the
metropolitanate of Ungro-Wallachia and the patriarchate of Constantinople and other
orthodox churches: A.—from its creation to 1800],” Biserica Ortodoxă Română 77, nos.
9–10 (1959): 916.
26  As the fourteenth century Franciscan Bartholomaeus of Alverna affirms in his list of
“errors” of the orthodox Romanians and Slavs (Errores schismaticorum orientalium):
“Decimo, quod unusquisque presbyter tantum potest absolvere, quantum quibuscumque
sub caelo, sive Papa, sive episcopus, aut archiepiscopus; quia claves habet et datae sunt
sibi sicut episcopis” (ed. Lasić, 68). For comment see Șerban Papacostea, “Întregiri la
cunoașterea vieţii bisericești a românilor în Evul Mediu, secolul XIV [Contributions to the
knowledge of the ecclesiastical life of Romanians in the Middle Ages, fourteenth centu-
ry],” in his Geneza statului în Evul Mediu românesc: Studii critice [Genesis of the Romanian
state in the Middle Ages: Critical studies] (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Dacia, 1988), 218, and
n. 39. Reprinted from Biserica ortodoxă română 99 (1981): 1–2, 107–122. Page references are
to the 1988 edition.
The Vampire In Romania 291

Constantinople, however, this could not happen if the excommunication had

been performed by a high ranking ecclesiastic. In that case, only he or another
of the same rank would have the power of lifting the ban. A fortiori, patriar-
chal excommunication could only be lifted by another patriarch, that of a met-
ropolitan by another metropolitan, and so on. This helps to explain the busy
schedule of Dositheos Notaras, patriarch of Jerusalem, during his stay in the
Romanian lands, which Raicevich describes in detail. The patriarch also visited
Brașov to collect alms and sell his famous indulgences. The Romanian histo-
rian Gheorghe Șincai recounts that his own father (or grandfather) had bought
one in 1701, and asked that it be placed on his chest when he died. This the
family refused, arguing that “the gift of God cannot be sold for money.”27 Let
us recall, here, that the bishop of Lincoln had advocated the same approach in
dealing with the Roxburgshire vampire, but history does not relate whether he
demanded money as the price of his intervention.
In any case, in Wallachia and Moldavia the practice of excommunicating
those who had borne false witness before a tribunal, whether ecclesiastical or
lay, expanded considerably from the seventeenth to eighteenth century. And it
would seem that the mere threat of this gave even the most hardened spirits
pause to reflect. Let us consider, here, the example of metropolitan Gregory of
Ungro-Wallachia (1629–1636):

If you give false testimony, you will be cursed and repulsed and excom-
municated by the Lord Jesus Christ and the 318 Fathers [of the Council] of
Nicaea, and your place will be [in hell] with Judas and Arius; the moun-
tains, iron, stones, and woods will rise and fall, but your body will remain
whole and deformed for eternity.28

As Raicevich correctly observed, in Romanian justice, and especially in civil

cases, the basic procedure for collecting evidence was through sworn testimo-
ny. And this to such an extent that in the middle of the eighteenth century, an
enlightened Moldavian prince, Matei Ghica (1753–1756), issued the following
solemn charter (chrysobulla):

We, Matei Ghica, voievod, by the grace of God, lord of the land of
Moldavia, make known by [this] charter that we have learned from His
Holiness, the most holy metropolitan of the country, kyr [sire] Jacob,
most honored spiritual father of our self and of all the great boyars, that

27  Șincai et al., eds., Cronica românilor, 257.

28  D RH B, vol. 25, no. 274, p. 296.
292 CHAPTER 9

in this country there was the custom, [operative among] laymen as well
as clergy, that when any agreements were concluded at hiring, or on
similar occasions—even with servants, journeymen, shepherds—all is
done without written accord and without witnesses. Should they go to
trial they have no means of proof against one another nor can the judges
be informed, having neither written testimony nor witnesses. Thus most
trials cannot be expedited without the swearing of oaths or acts of op-
probrium, and therefore each day many souls are lost, as we can see in
church cemeteries which are full of the excommunicated. Some through
poverty or ignorance dare to swear an oath, thus committing a sin of
faith, which is a separation from God. Therefore, Our Lordship, having
learned of this, will no longer tolerate this oath-taking. […] Henceforth
these oaths and acts of opprobrium will cease as will the loss of souls. […]
And we proclaim that without a written act no agreement will be made.29

The prince didn’t exaggerate when he evoked the Moldavian cemeteries filled
with excommunicates, that is to say potential or already active vampires. His
edict unfortunately was not followed and vampires continued to haunt the
imagination of the populations, above all those who lived near cemeteries. On
this we have a doctor’s enlightening testimony from the late eighteenth cen-
tury. He was a Saxon, named Andreas Wolf, and had spent more than fifteen
years in the country:

There exists here a custom still more harmful which should be put to
an end in the name of humanity. These are the premature burials which
often occur among the Moldavians, as well as the Greeks and Jews who
live here. When it appears that one of their friends, spouses, children, or
other relatives are dead, they hasten to bury them. And, without even
allowing eight, ten, or twelve hours to pass, the presumed dead person
is already confined to the grave. What a custom deprived of holiness and
humanity! No medical examination is allowed. No doctor, no surgeon is
called to examine the body. As soon as someone appears dead, he is im-
mediately buried. No one wants to know anything about this apparent
death [asphyxia] and I dare say, not without evidence, that a good num-
ber of hypochondriacs and hysterical ladies, which Moldavia certainly
does not lack, have been buried while still alive! Certain inhabitants of
Iași, who know of what they speak, openly say that on some nights they

29  Published in Romanian with a French translation in Iorga, ed., Anciens documents, vol. 2,
352–354.
The Vampire In Romania 293

have heard, after the burial of a deceased person, a stifled cry and noises
in the church cemetery. However these people are considered insane,
and even when they are not mocked their accounts serve to make good
ghost stories.30

Doctor Wolf raises here a highly important issue, pertinent to our deeper
analysis of the vampire phenomenon. If people in a state of catalepsy or un-
consciousness were prematurely buried, and there was a chance they would
reawaken, they were surely doomed. Their cries and movements would terrify
neighbors, who would conclude they now had a problem with vampires.
However, this situation was not unique to Moldavia. In a remarkable work
published in 1992, Claudio Milanesi revolutionized our knowledge on this
subject,31 clarifying the disturbing dark side of the Age of Enlightenment, no-
tably its anxiety over apparent death and obsession with premature burials.32
Milanesi centered his study on the pioneering works of Jacobus Benignus
[Jacques-Bénigne] Winslow (1669–1760) and especially Jean-Jacques Bruhier
(1685–1756). In 1740, Winslow published, in Latin, a treatise on the uncertainty
of the signs of death, which Bruhier soon after translated into French, add-
ing an annex describing no fewer than 268 cases of apparent death.33 This in-
duced him to publish in 1745 a mémoire on the need for general regulation
vis-à-vis burials and embalming. Following this was a plan for regulation which

30  Beiträge zu einer statistisch-historischen Beschreibung des Fürstenthums Moldau

(Hermannstadt: Hochmeister, 1805), 239–240.
31  Milanesi, Mort apparente, mort imparfaite.
32  One finds here certain fundamental and morbid ingredients of romanticism which, at the
literary level, are precedented in Edward Young’s Nuits (Plaintes ou Pensées nocturnes sur
la vie, la mort et l’immortalité (1742–1745), and Volney’s Les Ruines, ou Méditations sur les
révolutions des empires (1791).
33  The first edition was published in 1742, full title with original spelling being Dissertation
sur l’incertitude des signes de la mort, et l’abus des enterremens, & embaumemens précipi-
tés: Par M. Jacques Bénigne-Winslow, Docteur Régent de la Faculté de Medecine de Paris,
de l’Academie Roiale des Sciences, &c. Traduite, & Commentée par Jacques-Jean Bruhier,
Docteur en Medecine (Paris: Morel, le jeune, et al.). On the publication history and vari-
ous editions and translations, see Martin S. Pernick, “Back from the Grave: Recurring
Controversies over Defining and Diagnosing Death in History,” in Death: Beyond Whole-
Brain Criteria, ed. Richard M. Zaner (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988),
21. Further on Winslow and Bruhier in Václav Grubhoffer, “Fear of Seeming Death in
Eighteenth-Century Europe,” in Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times:
The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death, ed. Albrecht Classen,
Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, vol. 16 (Berlin: Walter de Bruyter,
2016), 493–497.
294 CHAPTER 9

recommended reform of tombs, summoning medical opinion, death certifi-

cates, and so on. His calls went unheeded, but after 1770 debate on the danger
of premature burial, notably in cases of asphyxia by drowning, greatly intensi-
fied. And, in 1791, Christopher Wilhelm Hufeland built the first “Azylium du-
biae vitae” in Weimar. Other asylums of this sort opened in Berlin in 1797, in
Mayence in 1803, and then all throughout German territory.
In France, the pace of development was less rapid. From 1780, however,
cemeteries were being enclosed with walls, and a clear and sharp separation
between the world of the living, and the world of the dead, was emerging.
Debates over Bruhier’s works were fueled, moreover, by the vampire stories
assembled by Dom Augustin Calmet, abbot of Sénones, in his Dissertations
sur les apparitions des anges, des démons & des esprits. Et sur les revenans et
vampires de Hongrie, de Boheme, de Moravie & de Silesie [Dissertations on the
apparitions of angels, demons and spirits and on revenants or vampires of
Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia].34 The latter was an important addi-
tion to the literature on vampirism produced in the seventeenth and especially
eighteenth century.35

Vitamin C, Weapon Against Vampires

Doctor Wolf correctly coordinated the problem of vampirism in Moldavia

with the much vaster one of premature burials. However, he was unable to ex-
amine apparent deaths, and, what is more important, the church forbade the
practice of autopsy. This was the unquestionable privilege of Austrian military
doctors and surgeons, who could study at their leisure cases of vampirism in
Transylvania and the Banat, and also, between 1717 and 1739, Habsburg occu-
pied Serbia and Oltenia. From the mass of investigation and autopsy reports
sent by the military doctors to the Viennese authorities, one name stands out,
that of Doctor Georg Tallar.

34  First published in Paris in 1746, followed by a two-volume second edition published in
1751. That same year, Abbot Nicolas Lenglet Dufresnoy likewise published, in Avignon, his
two-volume work entitled Traité historique et dogmatique sur les Apparitions, les Visions et
les Révélations particulières. Avec des observations sur les Dissertations du R. P. Dom Calmet,
Abbé de Sénones, sur les Apparitions et les Revenants.
35  Relevant works inventoried in Aribert Schröder, Vampirismus: Seine Entwicklung vom
Thema zum Motiv (Frankfurt: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1973), and Hamberger,
Mortuus non mordet, 272–286.
The Vampire In Romania 295

Tallar studied sciences at the Superior School of Mainz and later pursued
advanced studies at the Collège Salzmann in Strasbourg. He then served for
eighteen years as a surgeon in the Austrian armies, during campaigns against
France and the Ottoman Empire.36 Between 1724 and 1756, he was able to
observe and study—twice as a witness, and three times as an official inves-
tigator—five cases of people attacked by vampires in the Banat, southern
Transylvania, and Oltenia. In 1756, empress Maria-Theresa was disturbed by
proliferating superstitions in her realm, and ordered the regional administra-
tor of Timișoara to commission an investigation of vampires in the eastern
part of the empire.
Tallar then drew up a report entitled Visum repertum anatomico-
chyrurgicum, divided into four principal parts and a conclusion.37
The first section dealt with the Wallachian way of life and diet, in particular
during the long periods of fasting the Orthodox Church imposed on the faith-
ful. Throughout the year there were four major periods of fasting: Lent (six
weeks plus a less rigorous seventh), Saints Peter and Paul (two to four weeks),
the Assumption (two or three weeks), and Christmas (five to six weeks).
Adding the usual Wednesday and Friday fast days, this adds up to more than
two hundred fasting days per year.38 Scrupulous respect for fasting was a sacred
obligation for everybody. Even thieves respected these periods of abstinence,
Tallar informs us. His testimony is confirmed by an American doctor, James O.
Noyes, who visited the Romanian land a century later:

The abstinence enjoined on fast days is so severe that you cannot buy
even a cup of milk with gold. The Russian or the Wallachian peasant
could not be induced to sweeten his tea with sugar purified with the

36  V. I. Bologna, “Raportul din 1756 al unui chirurg german despre credinţele românilor
asupra moroilor [Report of 1756 of a German surgeon on Romanians’ beliefs in moroi],”
Anuarul Archivei de Folclor 3 (1935): 159–168. Tallar’s text has been partially republished
by Hamberger, Mortuus non mordet, 93–96, 144–159. For a more recent assessment of
Tallar, in the wider context of vampirism in the Habsburg frontier lands 1724–1760, see
Peter J. Bräunlein, “The frightening borderlands of Enlightenment: The vampire problem,”
Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 43 (2012): 710–719,
and espcially pp. 715–716. Also useful is Adam Mezes, “Insecure boundaries: Medical ex-
perts and the returning dead on the Southern Habsburg borderland” (Master’s thesis,
Central European University History Department, 2013), 36–53.
37  The manuscript of Tallar’s report is preserved in Vienna (Hofkammerarchiv, Banater
Akten), and was published in 1784 in both Vienna and Leipzig.
38  Raicevich, Osservazioni, 230–231; trans. Lejeune, 128. Cf. also Wilkinson, An Account of the
Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, 152–153.
296 CHAPTER 9

blood of oxen. Basil, the celebrated Daco-Roman robber, having mur-

dered an entire family and pillaged their dwelling on Friday, was shocked
to see one of his band lick with his tongue a dish that had contained but-
ter. “Heathen!” cried he, giving the fast-breaker a savage blow, “hast thou
then no fear of God?”39

In times of fasting, the Romanians’ nourishment consisted of raw onions,

garlic, sauerkraut (raw or boiled in water), brined squash, and kale cooked
without lard. In place of bread, they ate corn flour mush (mămăliga, polenta,
meliga in the Piedmont), and beans without fat. They would also have a sour
soup, variously with malt vinegar, juice of wild apples, or cabbage juice. To
be sure, this strange diet weakened young children, pregnant women, and the
elderly, making them vulnerable to illness. On the other hand, at Christmas
feasts people were unrestrainedly eating grilled pork meat, day and night.
In the second part of Tallar’s report, the times in which vampires strike
are discussed. This usually is during the last two weeks of the Christmas fast.
Sickness becomes increasingly worse, and only ends on Saint George’s Day.
A few weeks after this, the ill come forth from their “den” (the expression is
Tallar’s), and return to work. Physical movement and fresh air curtail further
progress of the sickness. And with medicine, symptoms disappear a month
later, at most.
Next, Tallar describes the symptoms of this illness and reproduces a typical
consultation dialogue, of the sort he’d conducted many times before.

To the patients who are said to be suffering from attacks by the moroi, we
have asked the following questions:
“How long have you been bedridden?”
“Barely two to three days.”
“What do you suffer from?”
They had a pain in the heart. When asked “where is the heart”, they
indicated the region of the stomach and the intestines. All of them com-
plained of pains in this false heart.
There followed other necessary questions regarding sleep. Yes, they
had slept sufficiently, however some, notably in Călacea [Kalácsa, in the
Banat], said that, when they wished to sleep, the moroi were immediately
present.
They were asked what this moroi looked like, and who it was. Some
said a recently deceased man, others a recently deceased woman.

39  Noyes, Roumania: The Border Land, 191.

The Vampire In Romania 297

“What did this moroi do?” It remained near them or in each corner of
the room.
“Was it present during our interview?” No. And finally, they saw it
sometimes while sleeping, sometimes when they were awake. […]
And all, both healthy and ill, called for the opening of the tombs to
search for the moroi, or else they would all die.40

Tallar also reproduced Romanians’ views on what the vampires were doing.
In seventh place on his list of what he’d heard, he records that “vampires suck
the blood of the living and kill them.” He relays next the practical methods
these same peasants used to treat the illness. We encounter here a number of
amusing practices—spells, a pistol shot over the head of the patient, a mixture
of honey with wine or raki, holy oil, removal of tonsils with a kitchen knife,
anointing the body with the blood of exhumed vampires, etc. The author also
describes the exhumation of vampires and practices accompanying this opera-
tion. They were generally cut to pieces, decapitated, and then burned. The cus-
tom specific to Wallachia was taking the exhumed corpse beyond the village
boundary, cutting it to pieces, dousing it with hot wine, and then leaving the
remains for stray dogs and birds. And of course, a stake was invariably planted
in its heart.
Tallar’s description of the exhumed bodies is equally important. He tells us
that the dead buried in the winter decompose more slowly than other. Gasses
created by internal putrefaction and the consequent swelling induced people
to believe that a vampire had gorged itself, sucking the blood of its victims.
However, in stomachs of vampires that were opened in autopsy, no trace was
found of the magical herb with which they were supposedly nourished by the
devil. And, contrary to expectations, blood drawn from the vampirized sick
was plentiful, and was beneficial for the health of the patient. And so?
Even if he didn’t manage to come up with an exact diagnosis for these ill-
nesses attributed to vampires, Tallar deserves great credit for having explained
them in a rational manner, and associating them with a chaotic diet which al-
ternately provided little nourishment during periods of fast, and thereafter was
excessive. Romanians were therefore suffering at times from hunger, which

40  
Visum repertum anatomico-chirurgicum, oder Gründlicher bericht von den sogenannt-
en blutsäugern, vampier, oder in der wallachischen sprache moroi, in der Wallachen,
Siebenbürgen und Banat, welchen eine eigends dahin abgeordnete untersuchungskom-
mission der löbl. k. k. administration im jahre 1756 erstattet hat (Vienna and Leipzig: J. G.
Mössle, 1784), 21–23.
298 CHAPTER 9

could provoke hallucinations and the stomach pains which they called “heart
pains,” and at times from indigestion.
Modern doctors have confirmed the accuracy of Tallar’s observations and
have identified these notorious vampire-induced maladies as scurvy, pella-
gra, nyctalopia, and perhaps porphyria, all but one of which (the exception
is porphyria) are caused by vitamin deficiencies. And Tallar, interestingly,
highlighted the following important fact. The Germans and the Hungarians,
who fast little or not at all, do not suffer from these maladies. Nor do the
Serbs, who are orthodox like the Romanians, but consume large amounts
of peppers, a vegetable rich in antiscorbutic vitamin C. Likewise wealthy
Romanians and foreigners do not complain of these illnesses. It would seem,
then, that vampirisim was a sickness of the poor and ignorant.
Ethnologists, however, are not satisfied with reducing the vampire phe-
nomenon to aberrant dietary practices. Following Tallar’s observations,
they have noted that the beginning of the “vampire season” fell the night of
St. Andrew’s Day (November 30), and the cycle ended the night of St. George’s
Day (April 23)—which, as we’ve seen with Jonathan Harker, has its western
equivalent in “Walpurgis Night,” which falls on May 1.
Marianne Mesnil has drawn attention to Saint Andrew’s nocturnal activity.
This is when the strigoi return, as a group, to villages and give themselves over
to night battles.41 On this night, then, doors and windows must be caulked,
hinges and edges rubbed with garlic, and chimneys closed up, because male
vampires try to enter houses to drink the blood of the living. On Saint George’s
Day, in comparison, it is witches who try to drink the milk of cows, which peo-
ple have left outdoors to sleep. The rituals for self-protection on Saint George’s
Day are thus inversely symmetrical to those carried out on Saint Andrew’s day,
meaning that there are special times in the passage between the earthly world
and the beyond.42
For Sabina Ispas, director of the Bucharest Institute of Ethnography and
Folklore, vampires represented a dimension of animality in the human being.

41  As Carlo Ginzburg has investigated in sixteenth and seventeenth century Friuli (I benan-
danti: Ricerche sulla stregoneria e sui culti agrari tra Cinquecento e Seicento [Turin: Giulio
Einaudi, 1966], and translated into English as The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian
Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
and also Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983]). Also Marianne Mesnil,
“Revenants et sorciers: Entre vie et mort. Croyances, rites et récits de Roumanie,” Cahiers
de Littérature Orale 27 (1990): 175–194.
42  Marianne Mesnil, “Un dossier medical du vampirisme au siècle des Lumières: Une hy-
pothèse sur les maladies saisonnières,” in Comprendre le recours aux médecines parallèles,
eds. Georges Bauherz et al. (Brussels: Centre de sociologie de la santé, 1989), 72–77.
The Vampire In Romania 299

Destroying them amounts to defending humanity against the intrusions and

aberrations of the animal world.43
At this point in our survey of vampirism in Romania and Transylvania, we’ve
reached the second half of the eighteenth century. By now the phenomenon
seemed to be en route to extinction, under the combined pressures of imperial
authorities in Transylvania (edicts of Maria Theresa in 1755, and Joseph II in
1784), princely authorities in Wallachia and Moldavia (the 1646 and 1652 codes,
revisions from 1739 to 1801), and ecclesiastical authorities.
At the end of 1774, a campaign against “vain beliefs” was carried out with-
in the Austrian state primary schools, which were reorganized following the
suppression of the Jesuit order. The pedagogical principles now adopted were
those of Ignaz von Felbiger, whose manual for teachers, translated in 1791 into
Serbian and Romanian, included condemnation of “the national prejudices,”
i.e., in the case of the Romanians, beliefs which featured vampires. From 1840,
Wallachian students themselves had the right to texts treating of beliefs in
strigoi, pricolici, and other vârcolaci.
A new vehicle for struggling against such beliefs was the press, which re-
ported on cases of vampirism in a more or less sensational tone, beginning in
1839 in Transylvania and 1859 in Wallachia.
Alongside these campaigns, the vampire emerged as a literary theme with
Ion Heliade- Rădulescu’s Zburătorul [The Flying Incubus] of (1843) and Vasile
Alecsandri’s farce Doi morţi vii [Two Living Dead] (1851). The majority of these
literary works were mediocre, with a few exceptions such as the novellas of
Vasile Voiculescu (1884–1963), and Mircea Eliade’s Domnișoara Christina [Miss
Christina] (1936).
At the end of the 1880s, studies on folklore and ethnography expanded con-
siderably in Romania, revealing the troubling fact that rural Oltenia seemed
to be the area where belief in vampires was best preserved. Thanks to the
works of the priest Ciaușanu,44 N. I. Dumitrașcu,45 and more recently Ioanna
Andreesco,46 we are in a position to know the complex of traditions link-
ing death and the afterlife as they still survive among the inhabitants of this

43  Personal communication from Dr. Ispas to myself, 2001–2002.

44  Gheorghe F. Ciaușanu, Superstiţiile poporului român în asemănare cu ale altor popoare
vechi și nouă [Superstitions of the Romanian people compared to those of other peoples,
ancient and modern] (Bucharest: Librăriile Socec & Comp. și C. Sfetea, 1914).
45  N. I. Dumitrașcu, Strigoii: Din credinţele, datinile și povestirile poporului român [The strigoi:
beliefs, traditions, and stories of the Romanian people] (Bucharest: Cultura națională,
1929). Agnes Murgoci translated excerpts from Dumitrașcu in her article “The Vampire in
Roumania,” Folklore 37, no. 4 (1926): 324–326.
46  Andreesco, Où sont passés les vampires?
300 CHAPTER 9

region. The studies of funeral rites by S. Fl. Marian,47 Constantin Brăiloiu,48

and more recently Ioanna Andreesco and Mihaela Bacou49 indicate that the
populations of this region still prepare the deceased for their “one way” voyage
to the beyond with meticulous care. Alongside this, there is strong belief that
the dead can return among the living, which must derive from archaic, pre-
Christian roots. This conservatism perhaps persists in other parts of Romania
still untouched by the rural exodus and industrialization of the past fifty years,
which have reduced the overall percentage of country folk from 78 to 45% of
the total population.
Currently only newspapers still report events involving vampires. Thus we
have four cases from the same department, Dolj (capital at Craiova), hitting
the news in 1927 (Universul, February 13, 1927), 1938 (Universul, provincial edi-
tion, May 14, 1938), 1995 (Le Figaro, June 7, 1995) and 2002 (National, December
2, 2002). In three of these, a vampire was staked in the heart, cut to pieces, and
then reburied!
Finally, at a 2004 conference in Bucharest, one of the participants discussed
a recent case (February, 2004) in which a deceased man aged seventy-six was
exhumed by his family, who suspected him of being a strigoi (Marotinul de Sus,
Dolj county). The six family members had removed the heart from the corpse,
burned it, and ate up the ashes mixed with water.50
As should be evident, vampires in Romania will still have fine days (or rather
lovely nights) ahead of them.

47  Simion Florea Marian, Înmormîntarea la Români: Studiŭ etnograficŭ [Burial among the
Romanians: an ethnographic study] (Bucharest: Lito-tipografia Carol Göbl, 1892).
48  Constantin Brăiloiu, Sur une ballade roumaine (La Mioritza) (Geneva: Kundig, 1946), and
the funeral traditions recorded by this great folklorist in the county of Gorj, in Oltenia.
49  Ioanna Andreesco and Mihaela Bacou, Mourir à l’ombre des Carpathes, Bibliothèque sci-
entifique (Paris: Payot, 1986).
50  The exhumation and ritual slaying of Petre Toma subsequently achieved notoriety in the
British and American media. The episode is vividly reconstructed by M. J. Trow in A Brief
History of Vampires (London: Constable & Robinson, Ltd., 2010), 311–313. Four years earlier
Trow published a popularizing history of Dracula, which is well written and fairly ac-
curate (Vlad the Impaler: In Search of the Real Dracula [Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2003]);
this is reprinted in his Brief History of Vampires, pp. 107–330, 345–357. Among the news-
paper reports, one of the more interesting is that by the University of Bradford archaeolo-
gist Dr. Timothy Taylor (“The Real Vampire Slayers,” The Independent [London], October
27, 2007). Taylor and anthropologist Kathryn Denning were featured, again in 2007, in a
Discovery documentary entitled “Real Vampires,” in which villagers involved in the Petre
Toma episode were interviewed on site. Discovery is a popular American cable and satel-
lite television channel.
Conclusion
Vlad Dracula, a Vampire?

In bringing this investigation to a close, let’s pose a final question: Was Dracula,
or was he not, a vampire?
An opening argument, here, might be his epithet—Dracula, from drac,
or “devil.” Since the devil is the master of vampires par excellance, might not
any association with him provoke a suspicion of vampirism? Consider the
following:

On Saint-Andrew’s night, all the moroii try to seek God’s forgiveness. At

this time they remember their evil doings on earth. But Satan does not
permit them to make amends […] and, as big as market hall, he spreads
his bat-like wings, with eyes like red embers, his mouth black as tar, his
teeth white as snow, he swoops out of the west, cutting off their path
condemning them to their dark cold dwellings. […]
You can behold the disproportionately long shadows of these appari-
tions, swirling like water in a millrace. […] Watch the exhausted strigoii
sink down on the masses of roses or lilies planted on their tombs, leaning
their elbows on the cold, stone crosses, their hands pressing against their
temples. […] their blurry eyes are filled with tears. […] Finally, they cover
their pale, bony, wrinkled, cold faces and weep for their past lives!
And Satan, glancing fire from his eyes, tells them: “You strigoi and stri-
goaice … Do not weep! I am your Lord! Leave your bones aside and come
with me!”
And suddenly the noise of wings is heard and the rooster sings:
Cockadoodledo!
So, hearing this sound the strigoii, rush back to their tombs and await
for another opportunity to reach God.1

Still in all, no medieval or modern historical source designates Vlad Dracula

as a vampire. Michael Beheim’s reference to Vlad’s custom of dipping or wash-
ing his hands in his enemies’ blood whilst dining (ll. 171–176) is not sufficient
evidence.2 And no source speaks of him drinking this blood. Besides, a vam-
pire would be served directly at the source, or rather … the jugular vein!

1  Dumitrașcu, Strigoii, 17–18.

2  See Appendix, p. 322, and note 18.

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302 Conclusion

Dracula’s favorite punishment—impalement—is furthermore counterevi-

dence rather than convincing proof. In impaling his victims, Vlad prevents
them from becoming vampires, which they logically should have become,
since they were not accorded the funeral rites necessary to ensure the repose of
their souls—confession, extreme unction, communion, a candle lit at the bed-
side, careful preparation of the body, interment according to prescribed rules.
But if Dracula were truly a vampire, why the devil would he have prevented his
victims from themselves becoming vampires?
Remaining, finally, is the mystery of the Snagov tomb. The voievod’s body
was perfectly preserved until the moment the tomb was opened. But then,
on contact with air, it decomposed before the eyes of the archeologists who
thus were unable to photograph it. This all argues that Vlad was not a vam-
pire, particularly since his head was cut off. And let us recall, here, that in the
Romanian mind, discovery of an intact (or nearly intact) corpse would plead
more in favor of sanctity, than its opposite.

Dead Vampires and Living Vampires

Did the Wallachian population view Vlad Dracula as a vampire? The follow-
ing views of a Romanian peasant may be considered representative of his
compatriots:

The people who have done evil on earth become strigoi after their
deaths. The emperors who have mistreated their subjects; the assassins;
those whose actions are cursed, those whom the people curse for their
actions, all become moroi.3

So let us consider, then, what is implied in this text, namely that Vlad was not a
vampire while alive, but became such after his death. According to the criteria
previously outlined, Dracula had no possibility of becoming a vampire after
his death. Romanian traditions regarding living vampires are very rich. They
were destined to become vampires typically on account of some childhood
characteristic—an infant born with its umbilical cord or placenta wrapped
around its neck or head; an infant born of first cousins or other close rela-
tives down to the fourth degree; an infant born to assassins or sorcerers; an
infant whose pregnant mother drank water polluted by the devil’s spit; or a sev-
enth born boy or girl, in a family with the same mother. In 1788, the naturalist

3  Dumitrașcu, Strigoii, 17.

Conclusion 303

Balthasar Hacquet encountered a boyar named Șeptilici in northern Moldavia,

about whom he relayed the following:

I was surprised by my name, which meant “the seventh”, and I had ques-
tioned other Moldavians on the reason for this name. They all gave me
the same answer that his mother had given birth in a single month to
seven children, four of whom were still alive. When I asked the same
question of the boyar, a strong man with broad shoulders, he confirmed
what I had been told and said that I could get more information from the
village priest.4

It was supposed that living vampires never ate garlic, avoided incense smoke,
and appeared with the following characteristics:

The strigoii are large, with red eyes, with long nails, their body covered in
hair, the spine ends with a hairy tail. Some maintain they have the hoves
of a horse, hairy hands, and a large mouth like an ogre. A strigoi has a
human face when he walks at night. In the morning, however, upon close
observation he appears to be a man yet leaves the tracks of a foal. This is
how we know he is a strigoi. A strigoi can be recognized by men born on
a Saturday.5

We cannot confirm that Vlad was born with a full head of hair, or that he re-
sumed suckling after he had been weaned, or that his spinal column extended
into a hairy tail. We know, on the other hand, that he was not large, had bluish-
gray eyes6 and—until we can prove the contrary—like the smoke of incense.
When he walked, he did not leave behind the tracks of a colt, and did not have
a large mouth like an ogre.
If he was not himself a vampire, Vlad Dracula lived in a country where its
populace strongly believed in these creatures of the night. And continue to do
so, at least in Oltenia, but without identifying Dracula as a vampire. And it is
better this way.

4  Balthasar Hacquet, Hacquet’s neueste physikalisch-politische Reisen in den Jahren 1788 und
1789 durch die Dacischen und Sarmatischen oder Nördlichen Karpathen, vol. 1 (Nuremberg:
Im Verlag der Raspischen Buchhandlung, 1790), 20. Romanian translation in Holban, ed.,
Călători străini, vol. 10, pt. 2, p. 813.
5  Candrea, Folklorul medical român comparat, 148.
6  Following Nicholas of Modrussa’s eyewitness description. See above, p. 84.
Appendices

∵
Chronology

1290–1291.—Foundation of the Voievodate (Principality) of Wallachia.

1320–1352.—Reign of Basarab I who gives his name to the reigning dynasty. The
voievod (prince) is a vassal of the King of Hungary.
1359.—Creation of an ecclesiastical metropolitanate in Wallachia by the ecumeni-
cal patriarch of Constantinople. Orientation of the country towards eastern
Christianity (Orthodoxy).
1386–1418.—Reign of Prince Mircea the Old. Wallachia becomes tributary to the
Ottoman Turks.
ca. 1385–1390.—Birth of Vlad, son of Mircea, who is sent as a hostage to the court of
Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of Hungary (1387–1437) and Emperor of Germany
(1410–1437).
1429–1430.—Birth of Vlad, son of Vlad Dracul, claimant to the throne of Wallachia.
December 1436.—Vlad Dracul is Prince of Wallachia.
1442–1444.—Vlad Dracul is held captive in the Ottoman Empire.
1444.—Vlad Dracul recovers his throne. Vlad, the future Vlad III Dracula, and his
brother Radu “The Handsome,” the future Radu III, are sent as hostages to the
Ottoman Sultan Murad II.
1445.—Expedition of Burgundian galleys to the Danube in search of King Vladislav of
Hungary, who was killed at the Battle of Varna.
1447.—Death of Vlad Dracul and his oldest son, Mircea, ordered by János Hunyadi,
governor of Transylvania and regent in Hungary.
October-November 1448.—First reign of Vlad III Dracula.
1448–1456.—Vlad Dracula is exiled in Moldavia and Hungary.
1453, May 29.—The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II “The Conqueror” captures
Constantinople and thus ends the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium).
1456.—Death of János Hunyadi during the defense of Belgrade against Mehmed II’s
assault.
1456–1462.—Principal reign of Vlad III Dracula in Wallachia. He quickly acquires the
epithet “Ţepeș,” i.e., “the Impaler.”
1458.—Election of Matthias Corvinus, son of János Hunyadi, as King of Hungary.
1459.—Election of Frederick III of Habsburg, Emperor of Germany, as King of Hungary.
War with Matthias Corvinus for possession of the Holy Crown of Hungary.
1462.—Sultan Mehmed II’s campaign in Wallachia. Vlad III Dracula eludes him and
the sultan departs, leaving Vlad’s brother, Radu the Handsome, as Prince in eastern
Wallachia. Vlad marries a sister (?) of Matthias Corvinus. Vlad’s arrest and exile in
Hungary, at the castle of Visegrád.

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308 Chronology

1463.—Peace treaty between Matthias Corvinus, who recovers the crown of Hungary,
and Frederick III at Wiener Neustadt. Printing of the Geschichte Dracole Waida
[The History of Voievod Dracula] in German, in Vienna, possibly by Ulrich Han.
1463–1474.—Vlad III Dracula’s exile in Hungary, first in Visegrád and later in Buda.
1476.—Hungarian campaigns against the Ottomans, in which Vlad participates.
October-December, 1476. Vlad III Dracula’s third and last reign in Wallachia, ending
with his death.
1486.—The Skazanie o Drakule voevode [The Tale of Voievod Dracula] is composed,
in Russian. Its author is Fyodor Kuritsyn, the foreign policy advisor of Ivan III, the
grand prince of Moscow.
1488–1568.—Reprintings of the German pamphlet about Vlad, usually entitled Die
Geschicht Dracole Waide [The History of Voievod Dracula], in the principal cities
of Germany. Twelve known editions appear in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Bamberg,
Leipzig, Lübeck, and Strasbourg.
1495.—Vlad and Mihnea, Dracula’s two sons, claim the throne of Wallachia.
1508–1510.—Vlad’s son Mihnea I the Bad and the latter’s son Mircea III reign in
Wallachia. Mihnea and Mircea jointly ruled April 1508–October 1509. Mircea con-
tinued ruling alone to January 1510.
1568–1577.—Alexander II Mircea, Vlad’s great-grandson, reigns in Wallachia. Alexander
ruled twice: 1568–1574, and 1574–1577.
1574–1591.—Peter VI the Lame, another of Vlad’s great-grandsons, reigns in Moldavia.
Peter ruled on three occasions: 1574–1577, 1578–1579, and 1583–1591
1577–1630.—The last descendants of Vlad III Dracula reign in Wallachia and Moldavia.
1804.—Rediscovery of Die Geschicht Dracole Waide [The History of Voievod Dracula],
and renewed interest in the historical Vlad III Dracula.
1842.—Rediscovery of the Skazanie o Drakule voevode [The Tale of Voievod Dracula] in
the Slavonic-Russian version.
1879.—Marie Nizet publishes her novella Le Capitaine Vampire in Paris, which may
influence Bram Stoker in his composition of Dracula.
1896.—Ion Bogdan carefully compares the German and Russian accounts and pub­
lishes selected episodes from among them. Dracula is still considered a bloody
tyrant.
1896.—Alexandru D. Xenopol publishes, in Paris, his two volume Histoire des Roumains
de la Dacie trajane, depuis les origines jusqu’à l’union des principautés en 1859 [History
of the Romanians of Trajan’s Dacia, from origins to the union of the principalities in
1859]. Dracula is presented as a great sovereign employing terror for political ends.
1897.—Bram Stoker publishes his novel Dracula in London. Dracula is depicted as a
vampire.
1972–1973.—Radu R. Florescu and Raymond T. McNally publish two works which
establish, for the first time, a link between the historic Vlad III the Impaler and
Dracula the vampire.
Chronology 309

1976.—Communist Romania celebrates the five hundredth anniversary of Vlad the

Impaler’s death. Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Romanian dictator, forbids any association
of Dracula with vampires. Vlad is presented as a national hero, defending his coun-
try against the Turks, and as a cruel but just sovereign. Postage stamps are issued
with Vlad’s portrait and a Dracula Tour is organized for foreign tourists.
2002.—The Romanian Minister of Tourism announces plans to create a “Dracula Land
Theme Park” above Sighișoara, the Transylvanian city where Vlad Dracula was born.
International protests compelled him to abandon the project.
2004.—Matei Cazacu’s biography of Vlad III Dracula is published, in French, by
Tallandier Éditions. In addition to the present English edition, it has been trans-
lated into Greek, Italian, Latvian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish,
and Turkish.
Geschichte Dracole Waide (Anonymous, 1463)
The History of Voievod Dracula

1. Item: The old governor had the old Dracul1 killed, and Dracula and his brother2
abjured their faith, and promised and swore to defend and uphold the Christian
faith.3
2. Item: The same year, he was put [on the throne] and became lord of Wallachia.4
He immediately had voievod Ladislaus5 killed, who himself had been lord [of
Wallachia].
3. Item: Soon after he had villages and castles in Siebenbürgen6 near Hermannstadt7
burned, and [other] villages and castles in Siebenbürgen were burned to ashes,
namely Klosterholz,8 Neudorf 9 and Holzmengen.10
4. Item: He had Beckendorf 11 in Burzenland12 burned. The men, women and chil-
dren, large and small, whom he did not immediately burn, he brought with him to
Wallachia bound in chains and had them all impaled.

 [Editor’s note]: This translation is based on Cazacu’s edition and French translation
(L’histoire du Prince Dracula, pp. 94–103), which in turn is based on Cod. Sang. 806,
Stiftsbibliothek, St. Gallen. This manuscript is currently accessible online in an excellent
digitized format (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0806 [accessed August 1,
2017]). The final Episode 36 derives from Additional MS 24315 in the British Library. See
fig. 7 for the first page of the St. Gallen MS version of the DGW 1463.
1  In the German, “Dracol,” i.e., Vlad II Dracul, who died in 1447.
2  I.e., Dracula and Radu the Handsome. Throughout Episodes 1–35, Dracula is referred to as
“Dracol,” with “Dracoll” as a variant spelling. In Episode 36 his name appears as “Drakole.”
3  Although the faith which Dracula and Radu purportedly renounced is not specified, the
plausible implication is Islam.
4  In the German, “Walachey.”
5  In the German, “Lasslaw Wabada,” i.e., voievod Vladislav II, 1448–1456. Ladislaus is the
Latin form of his name; the Hungarian is László.
6  In the German, “Sibenburgen,” with “Sibenburg” (Episode 3 etc.) as a variant spelling. In
the fifteenth century, Siebenbürgen designated the region of Sibiu.
7  In the German, “Hermonstatt,” variantly spelled “Hermenstatt” (Episode 26). The top-
onym in Romanian is Sibiu.
8  The German “Klosterholz” is more correctly “Kastenholz.” The toponym in Romanian is
Cașolt.
9  In the German, “Nüwdorf.” The toponym in Romanian is Noul Săsesc, also in Sibiu County.
10  In the German, “Holtzetüa.” The toponym in Romanian is Hosman, also in Sibiu County.
11  In the German, “Berkendorf.” The toponym in Romanian is possibly Bod, in Brașov County.
12  In the German, “Wuetzerland,” which in Romanian is “Ţara Bârsei,” a region of southeast-
ern Transylvania.

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Geschichte Dracole Waide 311

5. Item: Dracula concluded a truce agreement, and during that truce he had many
merchants and wagoners from Burzenland impaled.
6. Item: [There were] young boys and others, from many lands, who were sent
to Wallachia, so that they should learn the language and other things. These
[Dracula] had rounded up and delivered to him. He had them all put together in
a room, and burned. They numbered four hundred.
7. Item: He had a great [boyar] clan exterminated, from the smallest to the largest,
children, friends, brothers, sisters, and he had them all impaled.
8. Item: He had [some of] his people buried naked up to the navel and [then] shot
at. He also had some [others] roasted and flayed.
9. Item: He captured young Darin13 and thereafter had his priests read [a funer-
al service]. When this was finished, he had a grave dug [for him] according to
Christian custom, and had him beheaded next to the grave.
10. Item: Fifty-five ambassadors were sent to Dracula in Wallachia by the king of
Hungary and the Saxons in Siebenbürgen. Dracula let these lords wait about five
weeks, and had stakes made before their lodgings. They thought they would be
impaled. And oh, how deeply concerned they were! He held them so long so that
they would not betray him. And he left with his whole army and went forth to
Burzenland. Early one morning he came to the villages, castles, and towns, and
everything he overpowered he also destroyed, all the crops and grain, and he
had everything burned. And all those he captured he had led outside the city of
Kronstadt,14 near the chapel of Saint James. And Dracula himself rested there,
and had the entire suburbs burned. And as the day came, in early morning, all
those whom he captured—women and men, children, young and old—he had
impaled on the hill near the chapel, and around the hill. And he sat down at
table amidst them, and had joy of it.
11. Item: He had the church of St. Bartholomew burned, and he stole and made off
with all the liturgical vestments and chalices.
12. Item: He sent one of his captains to burn a large village named Seiding,15 but this
captain was not able to burn it on account of resistance from the villagers. Then
he came to his lord and said: “Lord, I wasn’t able to carry out what you ordered
me [to do].” Then he [Dracula] seized him and had him impaled.

13  I.e., the pretender Dan, defeated and executed in 1460.

14  In the German “Kranstatt.” The toponym in Romanian is Brașov, center of Brașov County.
15  In the German “Zeÿding.” The toponym in Romanian is Codlea, which is nearby Brașov.
312 Geschichte Dracole Waide

13. Item: Then he had impaled all the merchants, and others with merchandise—
the entire body of merchants—from Burzenland to the Danube, near Brăila.16
They numbered six hundred, with all their goods, and these he confiscated.
14. Item: He ordered that a large cauldron with two handles be made. Atop it was
a contraption with boards in which he had holes made, [large enough for] a
man’s head to pass through. Then he had a great fire lit beneath [the cauldron],
and filled it with water, and had [people] boiled. He had many people impaled,
women and men, young and old.
15. And he came back to Siebenbürgen, to Tălmaciu.17 There he had men chopped
up like cabbage, and his captives he brought to Wallachia, and these he had im-
paled cruelly and in various ways.
16. Item: He invented horrifying, dreadful, and unspeakable tortures. He had moth-
ers impaled with their suckling babies, and [he also had impaled] children aged
but a year, two years, or older. He tore children away from their mothers’ breasts,
and [separated] mothers from their children. He also cut away mothers’ breasts,
and stuffed their children headfirst [into the gaping wounds], and then impaled
[them]. And [he caused] much other pain. None of the other ruthless tyrants
and persecutors of Christians—like Herod, Nero, Diocletian and other pagans—
contrived such great pain and hurt, or made so many martyrs, as did this ruthless
tyrant.
17. Item: He had all sorts of people impaled side by side, young and old, women and
men. And so they were able to move their hands and feet, turning and twisting
their hands around, like frogs. Then he had their hands impaled, and oftentimes
said, in language like this: “Oh, with what great skill they move!” They were pa-
gans, Jews, Christians, heretics, and Wallachians.
18. Item: He held [under arrest] a Gypsy18 who had stolen. Then the other Gypsies
came and asked Dracula to give him to them. Dracula said: “He must hang, and
you must hang him yourselves.” They said: “That’s not our custom.” Then Dracula
had the Gypsy boiled in a cauldron, and when he was cooked, they had to eat
him, flesh and bones.
19. Item: A nobleman was sent to him, who came to him among the people he had
impaled. Dracula walked amongst [the impaled] and looked upon them, and
there were as many as a large forest. And [the nobleman] asked Dracula why
he walked around under the stench. Dracula asked: “Does it stink to you?” [The

16  In the German, “gegen der Thunow gegen Bregel.” Brăila was the key Wallachian port city
on the lower Danube.
17  In the German, “Talmetz.” Tălmaciu is a town in Sibiu County, not far from Sibiu. Variant
German forms of the toponym include Talmesch, Thulmacz, Tholmasch, and Talmucz.
18  In the German, “Zeginer,” also the plural form (cf. episode 32).
Geschichte Dracole Waide 313

nobleman] said: “Yes.” So Dracula immediately had him impaled and raised up
high in the air, so he would not smell the stench.
20. Item: A priest had preached that sins would not be forgiven unless one render
justice for an injustice. Now [Dracula] invited this same priest to his house, and
set him at [his] table. Then the lord [i.e., Dracula] broke [some pieces of] simmel
bread into his food. The priest took one of the broken [morsels] with his spoon.
Then the lord [i.e., Dracula] spoke [about] how [the priest] had preached … [for-
giveness of] sins, etc. etc. The priest said: “Lord, that’s true.” Then Dracula said to
him: “Then why do you take my bread that I’ve broken [into my food]?” And he
had him immediately impaled.
21. Item: He invited all his territorial lords and noblemen in his land to his house,
and when the meal was finished, he then turned to the oldest lord and asked how
many voievods or lords he remembered who had ruled in that same land. One
answered, as many as he could think of. And the other lords, young and old, an-
swered the same, and they asked one another, how many such lords could they
think of? One answered fifty; another thirty; another twenty; another twelve;
and none of the youngest spoke of [less than] seven. Thus [Dracula] had all these
lords impaled, and they numbered five hundred lords in all.
22. Item: He had a mistress who claimed she was pregnant. Then he had her exam-
ined by another woman, who couldn’t comprehend how she could be pregnant.
So he took his mistress and cut her open from below up to the breast, and said he
wanted to see the place where he had been, and where his fruit lay.
23. Item: And some people he had ground up on a grindstone, and [he did] many
more inhumane things, which people tell of him.
24. Item: In the year 1460, on St. Bartholomew’s Day, in the morning, Dracula came
with his servants over the forest,19 and, as is reported, he hunted down all the
Wallachians20 of both sexes near the village of Amlaș.21 And he was able to
bring together so many that he left them [piled up] in a bunch, and they were
chopped up like cabbage with swords, sabers, and knives. And he brought home
their chaplain and those he was not able to kill at that time, and had them im-
paled. He had the village with its goods completely burned, and, as is said, [those
killed] numbered more than thirty thousand.

19  I.e., to the “land beyond the forest,” or Transylvania.

20  In the German, “Walhen,” but corrected in other pamphlets as “Wallachen,” as in Beheim’s
“Song Poem on Dracula” (l. 499).
21  In the German, “Humilasch.” The Saxons of Transylvania called the duchy of Amlaș or
Amnaș the “Land vor dem Wald,” or “Unterwald.” A fief of the Wallachian princes, the
duchy consisted of seven Romanian villages situated around the Saxon village of Amnaș,
which were administered by Wallachian princely officials.
314 Geschichte Dracole Waide

25. Item: In the year of our Lord 1462, Dracula went to the large city of Nicopolis,22
where he killed more than twenty-five thousand, people of all sorts—Christians,
pagans, etc. Among those were the most beautiful women and girls, whom his
courtiers kept [for themselves]. They requested of Dracula to give them [these
women] to be their lawful wives. Dracula did not want to do this, and ordered
that everyone, including the courtiers, be chopped up like cabbage. He did this
because he was tributary to the Turkish emperor,23 who demanded from him
tribute payment. Dracula immediately had [the Turkish emperor’s] people
informed that he wanted to bring the tribute personally to the emperor. [The
Turkish emperor’s] people rejoiced. Thus he had [the Turkish emperor’s] people
come to him, in large groups, one after the other, and all the courtiers rode forth
[to receive them]. And he had all [the Turkish emperor’s people] killed. Also he
had the region called Bulgaria24 completely burned, and he had some [there]
nailed by their hair. And in all there were twenty-five thousand killed, as well as
those he had burned.
26. Item: Ambassadors from Hermannstadt saw in Wallachia the dead and those im-
paled like a large forest, aside from those he had roasted, boiled, and flayed.
27. Item: He rounded up [the population of] an entire region called Făgăraș,25 and
led them to Wallachia, with women, men, and children, and had them impaled.
28. Item: He himself beheaded some of his people who had helped him bury his
treasure.
29. Item: He had some of his nobles beheaded and he used their heads as bait for
crayfish. Then he invited their friends to his house, and offered them this same
crayfish to eat, saying: “You’re eating now your friends’ heads.” Then he had them
impaled.
30. Item: He saw a [man] working, [wearing] a short shirt, and said to him: “Do you
have a wife?” He answered: “Yes.” [Dracula] said: “Bring her to me.” He asked her:
“What do you do?” She answered: “I wash, bake, spin etc.” He immediately had
her impaled because she hadn’t made her husband a shirt long [enough], so that
one didn’t see his belly. And immediately [Dracula] gave him another wife, and
he ordered her to make her husband a long shirt, or he would have her impaled
as well.

22  In the German, “die grossen statt Schÿlta.” Also known as Schiltau, and both a confusion
with Schistau (Șistov).
23  In the German, “dem türkischen Kaiser.”
24  In the German, “Pallgareÿ.”
25  In the German “Fugrasch.”
Geschichte Dracole Waide 315

31. Item: He had impaled, one on top of the other, a donkey and a monk of a barefoot
order, whom he’d encountered.
32. Item: Around three hundred Gypsies came into his country. Then he took the
three best of them and had them roasted, and forcing the other Gypsies to eat,
he said: “[Each] one must eat [the roasted flesh] of the others, until there is
nothing left, or go and look for the Turks26 and fight them.” They were all will-
ing to go forth looking [for the Turks], wherever [Dracula] wished. Then he did
something and dressed them all in cowhides, and the same with their horses.
And now when they came upon one another [i.e., the Gypsies and the Turks],
the Turks’ horses took fright and fled, on account of the commotion,27 and the
Gypsies followed. Thus [the Turks] couldn’t control their horses and they fled to
a river, with the Gypsies following. And they all drowned.
33. Item: He invited to his house all the poor people in his land, and after they had
eaten, he had them all burned in a barn. They numbered two hundred.
34. Item: He had young children roasted, forcing their mothers to eat them. And he
cut the breasts off women, forcing [their] husband to eat them. Then he had the
men impaled.
35. Item: Some Italians28 were sent to him. When they came to him, they bowed and
took off their hats, under which they had brown and red berets or caps, which
they did not remove. Then [Dracula] asked them why they do not take off these
caps or berets. They answered: “Lord, it is our custom and we do not take them
off [even] before the Emperor.” And he said: “Well, I want to strengthen [you in
your] custom.” And they thanked him for his graciousness. He had good strong
iron nails [brought], and he had these nailed around the caps on their heads, so
that they would not fall off. And thus he strengthened them in their custom.

26  In the German, “Türcken.”

27  In the German, “… do schuchtend des Türcken ross und flüchent von wegen des
gerädels …” For the sense of “gerädel,” more commonly “gerodel,” as auditory (i.e., “racket,
noise, commotion”) see Matthias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, vol. 1
(Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1872), col. 886. Our thanks to Professor William C. McDonald for clarifi-
cation on this point. We may speculate further as to the cause of this “commotion” which
caused the Turks’ horses to panic and bolt. If the action in this episode is factually correct,
might Dracula have requisitioned the cowhides from local tanners, who took the hides
from vats where they had been soaking in urine? In this case the Turkish horses may ad-
ditionally have been repelled by the acrid ammonia smell of these cowhide coverings. Cf.
my French translation, L’histoire du prince Dracula, p. 32 (“Lorsqu’ils eurent rencontré les
Turcs, les chevaux de ces derniers prirent peur et s’enfuirent vers une rivière à cause de
l’odeur qu’ils n’aimaient pas”).
28  In the German, “Walhen.”
316 Geschichte Dracole Waide

36. Item: Now observe how the old governor of Hungary29 captured Dracula. The
governor of Hungary wrote [to Dracula, saying] he wanted to give Dracula his
daughter in marriage. And so Dracula came, in splendid [attire], with nine hun-
dred horses, and was very well received. And [the governor] gave him his daugh-
ter in words, but not in deeds and with [his heart], only for appearance. And
once the marriage was completed, [Dracula’s] father-in-law accompanied him
with a large retinue, set forth to Dracula’s country, and then stopped and said:
“Lord the husband, I’ve accompanied you enough.” And Dracula answered: “Yes,
lord.” He was now sure that he would ride home again.30 [But] they surrounded
[Dracula] and captured him. And he is still alive.

29  A confusion with Matthias Corvinus.

30  In the German, “Er wer nu sicher er solt newr wide haym reitenn,” which literally trans-
lated is: “He was now sure he would never ride home again.” This, however, is problematic
since it was generally known that Dracula was ambushed within Wallachia, his “home
country.” On this Beheim is quite emphatic (ll. 1050–1065). Plausibly what appears in GDW
1463 involves some transmission or textual editing error, which I correct in the above
translation.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der
Walachei (Michael Beheim, 1463, or as late as 1466)
Concerning a Despot called Dracula, Voievod of Wallachia

Translated by William C. McDonald

1 The worst despot1 and

tyrant that I know
on all this earth
under the wide vault of heaven,
5 since the world began;
no-one was ever so despicable.
I want to tell you about him.
He was Dracula,2 called voievod.
This very land of Wallachia
10 was under his control.
Here his father [Vlad II Dracul] had also been lord.
A powerful ruler was he, over wide expanses.
[Vlad II] also exercised authority
with wantonness and impropriety.
15 Thus he was beheaded
so that his violent dominion might end.
The person who did it was the father of

[Editor’s note]: McDonald’s translation originally was published in his “Michel Beheim’s
Song-Poem on Dracula: Some Notes and a Translation,” in In memory of Ulrich Müller, ed.
Sibylle Jefferis, vol. 1, Earthly and Spiritual Pleasures in Medieval Life, Literature, Art, and
Music, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, vol. 779 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 2014), 187–
229. Notes in this version—particularly vis-à-vis names and toponyms—largely represent
Cazacu’s emendations and clarifications, jointly from L’histoire du prince Dracula, 104–153,
and Dracula, 375–411. On problems of dating Beheim’s “Song Poem on Dracula,” see ed. and
trans. McDonald, 189–190.
1  In Beheim’s German, “wutrich.” On the correct translation of this as “despot,” and not, for
example, “bloodthirsty madman,” see ed. and trans. McDonald, 191–192.
2  Beheim’s spelling of the name Dracula varies throughout the poem: Trakle (title), Trakel (l. 8
etc.), Trakal (l. 22 etc.), Trakol (l. 49 etc.), Trakole (l. 405 etc.), Trakale (l. 471 etc.), Drakal (l. 881
etc.), Drakole (l. 1024 etc.), and Drakol (l. 1051).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_014

318 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

King Matthias [Corvinus] of Hungary.3

[John] Hunyadi4 was his name,
20 the governor of Hungary
who had the ruler executed.
The dead man’s son was also called Dracula—
and his brother with him.5
They had bowed down to idols,
25 to whom they offered homage,
as with a single voice.
These they then abjured,
denied and forswore, by
claiming to protect and maintain
30 the Christian faith.
The year, as men write and reckon it,
after the birth of Christ,
was 1400
and fifty-six.
35 Then this same Dracula
was chosen and selected
to be ruler and lord
of all Wallachia
and thereabouts: inside and out—
40 both near and far.
From then on in this land, he perpetrated
every kind of wantonness, vice and dishonor
that one might imagine.
The first thing he did
45 was to murder the ruler, voievod Ladislaus [Vladislav II],6
by virtue of a nasty intrigue.
This same Ladislaus had also been ruler
and lord in Wallachia.
Dracula brought about his death
50 disgracefully, shamefully and sorrowfully.
Thereafter, he rushed

3  In Beheim’s German, “Matthiasch von Ungern.”

4  In Beheim’s German, “Hunadienusch.”
5  I.e., Radu III the Handsome (1462–1474).
6  In Beheim’s German, “den waida hern Lassla.” Vladislav II ruled as voievod 1448–1456.
Ladislaus is the Latin form of his name. The Hungarian is László.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 319

to burn to ashes
a region and a whole land.
These he destroyed and laid waste—
55 whole villages, even the marketplaces.
I will tell you a little of this:
Kastenholz7 was the name of one;
the second bore the name of Neudorf;8
the third was called Holzmaina.9 All
60 knowing them, praise them.
Also Beckendorf10 in Burzenland11
he had burned to the ground,
with all its men and women
and all its children, large and small.
65 Whoever was in that place,
he spared not a one.
Any survivors of this arson
he put into chains
leading them away with him—
70 whether these be men, women, or children.
He took them away to Wallachia
and had them all placed in a row
and impaled—and executed.
Peace and quiet he maintained not at all.
75 At his command, merchants and wagoners
of no small number were impaled.
Many young boys
from various regions and places
were sent to Wallachia
80 so that they might learn
the Wallachian tongue.

7  In Beheim’s German, “Closterholcz.” The toponym in Romanian is Cașolt, in Sibiu County.
8  In Beheim’s German, “Newdorff.” The toponym in Romanian is Noul Săsesc, also in Sibiu
County.
9  In Beheim’s German, “Halczmaina.” The toponym in Romanian is Hosman, also in Sibiu
County.
10  In Beheim’s German, “Pekendorff.” The toponym in Romanian is possibly Bod, in Brașov
County.
11  In Beheim’s German, “Wurczenlant,” which in Romanian is “Ţara Bârsei,” a region of
southeastern Transylvania.
320 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

These Dracula immediately

had gathered together
(400 or more)
85 bringing each the agonies of death.
This vile tyrant!
He had them all burned to death,
stating: “I cannot tolerate it,
should they gain knowledge here
90 and come to know my homeland.”
He ruled cruelly.
One large clan he had
burned out and annihilated.
He impaled them, robbing them of their lives—
95 old and young, tall, small, man and woman,
from the least to the most important,
all of them, from wherever they came:
brothers and sisters (even children);
nephews and nieces (wherever they might be found).
100 The number was great.
Also, he ordered that some captives be
stripped naked and placed nude in the earth
and buried up to their navels.
Next, he commanded that
105 sharp arrows be shot at them.
This is true and no fictitious account!
He didn’t stop torturing them
until they gave up the ghost.
Then, many of them, en masse, were
110 roasted and flayed.
He took prisoner a man named Dan12
and had him conduct his
prayers and ministrations [before death].
When his wishes had been accomplished,
115 and carried out, according to desire,
the wicked and cunning one
had a grave dug,
ordering that Dan be led to the hole
and then decapitated.

12  In Beheim’s German, “Tan,” and later Tann (l. 118). Refers to the pretender Dan, defeated
and executed in 1460.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 321

120 Dracula did many a vile thing!

Ambassadors came to him
from Hungary, and the land of the Saxons13—
also from Siebenbürgen14—
500 in all. He held them
125 for five weeks, during which they believed
that this devil might impale or strangle them.
They harbored great dread
because he had had stakes placed in front of
their lodgings, right before the entrance door—
130 set up there by the accursed one.
Long did he keep them,
imprisoned and under duress,
because he feared
they would betray him.
135 One night he hurried,
departing in haste,
with all his men
to go to Burzenland.
One morning, early, so I am told,
140 this monster invaded
villages, fortifications and cities.
Everything that he had thus taken by surprise
he had put to the flame—
including storehouses of grain. Whatever he found,
145 he had set on fire,
destroyed, laid waste, and sundered.
Men, women and children:
Everyone he had put to death.
Whatever he put his hands on suffered distress.
150 No one emerged alive there.
Outside the city of Kronstadt,15 near
the chapel of Saint Jacob,

13  In Beheim’s German, “von Ungern und auss Sachsenlant.” “Sachsenland” is plausibly
Burzenland, or Ţara Bârsei.
14  In Beheim’s German, “Sibenpurgen.” In the fifteenth century, Siebenbürgen designated
the region of Sibiu.
15  In Beheim’s German, “Kronstat.” The toponym in Romanian is Brașov, center of Brașov
County.
322 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

Dracula wrought slaughter.

He gave orders to torch the suburb.
155 Any person found there
(whoever might cross his path)
be it men, women, and children,
young and old, big and small—
he took them all,
160 wherever he might find them.
One morning, early,
he hurried with his captives
to the mountain above the church
and had them impaled, each and every one,
165 in a circle around the mountain—
some lengthwise and some at a slant.
Listen to the misdeeds of this despicable man!
He sat down to eat in the midst [of the slaughter].
He ate his meal at the table,
170 filled with glee.
It was his bliss (and gave him pleasure)
to witness the dripping blood of the dying.
He had the custom
of washing his hands in blood
175 when his dinner table was brought to him.16
Whenever he dined,
if he wished for merry and ever new

16  [Editor’s note]: In their 1994 In Search of Dracula, Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu
alluded to this passage as follows: “In one verse, Beheim described Dracula as dipping
his bread in the blood of his victims, which technically makes him a living vampire—a
reference that may have induced Stoker to make use of this term” (p. 85). Their interpreta-
tion is philologically unsound and patently absurd, as David Dickens and Elizabeth Miller
carefully demonstrated in their “Michael Beheim, German Meistergesang, and Dracula,”
Journal of Dracula Studies 5 (2003): 27–31. Admittedly the key action which Beheim al-
leges is puzzling: “Es war sein lust und gab im mut, / wann er sach swenden menschen
plut, / wenn er dy gwonhait hete, / Das er sein hend dar innen zwung, / wann er sein
malzeit tete …” (ll. 171–176, ed. Cazacu p. 114, ed. McDonald p. 204). Literally translated, the
poet claims that Dracula dipped or pressed his hand in the blood implicitly of his victims,
which was brought to him when he sat down to table. To render this action as “washing
his hands in blood” is a bit of an extension, but still in all may well have been what Beheim
had in mind. But he certainly does not intimate that Dracula drank this blood, or soaked
bread in it, which he then consumed.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 323

amusements and wanted to be happy,

then it had to be done thus;
180 that at mealtime.
miserable victims were paraded by
who, when tortured, screamed loudly.
This was his joy and delight.
“Harken to pleasant entertainments
185 and delicious delights!”
Thus spake this wicked man.
These miserable ones were cast down.
Some had teeth bashed out;
some had fingers lopped off;
and others lost limbs.
190 This faithless fellow had
ears, mouth[s] and noses cut off and
hair ripped away to the scalp.
Some [he had] hung on a pole;
195 others had their cheeks burned through.
Mercy was nowhere to be found. Punishment
was there in every shape and form
(whatever might bring woe),
as long as the victims screamed loud and long
200 and there was a variety of pain.
If a person had so long
suffered such pain and torture,
that he was numb to pain,
and no longer could cry out,
205 then Dracula pulled out his saber
and lopped off his head—
or choked him straight away.
Whether these be women, men or children,
he did this often, whenever he sought
210 diversion, joy, or fun.
In Kronstadt he even
burned down St. Bartholomew’s Church,
taking all its habiliments,
monstrance, chalice, and vestments for the Holy Mass
215 with him. [He seized] everything,
whatever he had been able to find.
He had one of his
324 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

headmen sent into a village

to wipe it out, then set it ablaze.
220 Listen to this about the treacherous scoundrel!
The selfsame village was called Zeiden.17
Due to [citizen] attempts at defense and resistance
in this village of Zeiden,
Dracula’s headman came to him,
225 saying: “Gladly will I carry out your orders,
but I can’t complete the task,
my lord, according to your instructions.
The inhabitants are so wicked,
and have such strong fortifications,
230 that they are too much for us.”
Immediately, Dracula seized this man
and had him impaled in gruesome fashion,
thus letting him perish
for what he had left undone.
235 He had failed to do it;
that is why he had to die.
Merchants were there
with their wares,
in Burzenland by the Danube18
240 near Brăila19—so I am told.
There were to my knowledge 600 of them.
All these he commanded be impaled, then
confiscated their possessions and goods.
He ordered, made to measure,
245 a very large cauldron
which could be heated.
It had two handles.
On top was a lid made of planks.
This vessel brought many a person to distress—
250 and to great grief.
The lid on the cauldron was
covered with vents, so that a person

17  In Beheim’s German, “Seiding,” but “Seidingen” a few lines later (l. 223). The toponym in
Romanian is Codlea, which is nearby Brașov.
18  In Beheim’s German, “Wurczenlant gen der Tuna.”
19  In Beheim’s German, “Preissl.” Brăila was the key Wallachian port city on the lower
Danube.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 325

might stick his head through them.

Then the monster
255 had a large fire made under it,
had the pot heated,
had water poured into it:
and had these persons boiled therein.
To boot, he had men, women, and children
260 impaled.
Again he went with vile feelings of hostility
to Tălmaciu in Siebenbürgen.20
There he ordered many people
cut up into small pieces, like cabbage.
265 He took many captives home with him.
Listen as I tell you of his abominations!
Both men and women,
children large and small, young and old
he had them impaled at once—
270 had everyone killed.
This despot and tyrant brought forth
all the torments that one might imagine.
Of all the tyrants,
none was his equal as a cause of harm:
275 Herod, Diocletian,
Nero—not anyone you might name!
Some people he ordered wounded,
then had their wounds rubbed with salt.
Others he had roasted in hot lard.
280 Many came to know much torment there!
Some were roasted, burned through;
some were broiled; some skinned;
and still others were hanged.
Some were ground on a sharpening wheel;
285 still others got lowered
into latrines.
Some, nude,
got hanged by the hair;
others he directed to be suspended

20  In Beheim’s German, “gen Sibenburgen in Kalmacz.” Tălmaciu is a town in Sibiu County,
not far from Sibiu. Variant German forms of the toponym include Talmesch, Thulmacz,
Tholmasch, and Talmucz.
326 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

290 on iron chains.

Those who had been struck
in their eyes, noses and mouths
and in their private places
he commanded to be hanged.
295 He also had stones thrown at them
until they perished.
For some people, he commanded that
augers bore out their eyes,
and nails be shoved through their ears.
300 This evil shedder-of-blood!
No safety or security was found there.
Some were disemboweled
and had their throats riven.
Dogs, too, were put to use.
305 If incited to attack humans,
they immediately bit them to death.
For some, he commanded that nails
penetrate the body on all sides.
Others had their skulls beaten in
310 with bludgeons, clubs, and flails.
Some were fastened to wild steeds
that were allowed to race through the streets.
Others were hitched to wagons,
and let roll downhill.
315 There was nothing to prevent
their necks from being broken.
Some, he hurled from catapults,
putting others in canons, from which
he then ordered that they be shot.
320 So much did they have to endure!
And some he commanded to be hurled
from high towers
into deep water and wells.
He chopped off feet and hands, too,
325 leaving these people to lie there
until they began to die.
Some he beat to pieces.
He seized suckling children
a half year old or more,
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 327

330 whom the mothers pressed

to their breasts,
arms clasped lovingly around [the children].
With their little arms, the children
clung fast to their mothers.
335 He had them impaled, too:
mothers, with children in diapers.
The women’s breasts he ordered
be cut off of them;
the little nursing children
340 had their heads pushed through [where the breasts had been].
Them, too, he had impaled.
He took the children from their mothers
then gave the order to roast them.
Next, the mothers had to eat them.
345 Then, he cut off their breasts,
which were roasted, too,
and their husbands were forced to eat them.
Then, he had them impaled swiftly.
Some, he let die of trampling;
350 others, he had pressed, squeezed to death.
All sorts of people—
men, women. children, old, young, big and little—
he had impaled from side to side.
Hands and feet seemed,
355 in virtue of their twisting and thrashing,
as if of frogs or pollywogs.
He spoke: “Amazing! How adroitly
they move, with great dexterity!”
Next, he had impaled, too,
360 their hands and feet—uncountable ones.
There were—I swear to you—
all kinds of people:
Christians, Rascians, Wallachians,
Jews, heathens, Gypsies, too.21
365 What did he do after this?
Listen to some strange things!

21  In Beheim’s German, “kristen, Reczen, Walachen, Juden, haiden, Zigeiner ach.” Rascians
were orthodox Serbs or south Slavs.
328 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

He had a Gypsy
seized who had committed a robbery.
When it became known,
370 there arrived others of his
comrades, the Gypsies,
and begged Dracula that he
might release the prisoner to them.
Dracula said: “That is impossible.
375 He is to hang. This is his reward.
Let no man counter my order!”
They replied: “Lord, hanging
is not our custom.
If one steals something,
380 that should not be regarded with contempt.
We have a sealed missive
from Holy Roman Emperors,22 an extensive one,
to the effect that we are not to be hanged.”
Take note of what Dracula did!
385 He said not much nor made pronouncements,
Pay heed to his strange machinations.
This Gypsy he ordered
to be boiled in a cauldron.
The other Gypsies he bade
390 all to come hither.
They were compelled to
eat him all up—
flesh, as well as bones.
Now listen, what else he did.
395 An honorable and upright man
came to his court.
He found him [Dracula] out there
by those whom he had impaled.
Dracula went among the victims and beheld them,
400 as was his habit.
Large and multifold were
their number—as many as a great forest—
since many a person was hanging there.
In his most pleasant manner, the same man

22  In Beheim’s German, “von romischen kaisern.”

Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 329

405 began to speak to Dracula,

asking why he was walking around
amidst all this stench.
Dracula had this man
hanged, too, on a stake
410 and thanked him for his wise counsel.
He had him hanged especially high,
where the evil stench and smell
would not be able to reach him.
Once a priest
415 came to Dracula and
delivered a sermon.
Sins would not be forgiven
unless one returned unjustly acquired goods
taken from other persons
420 without measure.
Dracula walked with the priest,
then invited him to dine.
At the meal,
while they were sitting at the table,
425 this debauched and devilish man broke
crumbs into his food.
The clergyman now and then
took morsels of Dracula’s food
with his spoon
430 and began to eat them.
Dracula then said: “Now, tell me:
Did you not preach here that
sins will only be forgiven
if one leave to the rightful owner that which is coming to him?”
435 The priest answered: “Indeed, that is my
religious instruction in such matters.”
Dracula retorted: “Why, then,
did you take crumbs from me that
I had broken here on the table?
440 This will bring you no good.”
He then took the poor priest and
had him impaled as soon as he could.
Too, the depraved villain invited
all the territorial lords
330 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

445 and all the noblemen in his land

to his abode.
When the banquet was at an end,
his guests he began
to query, asking the eldest man
450 if he could estimate how many
rulers he had known
and how many lords this same land
had had to hold control over it.
This man answered
455 as best he could.
He began to tell—
as did all the others.
Old and young, each separately Dracula
asked the same question
460 of those gathered there:
How many such lords
they could recall, who then became rulers?
This they answered, one after the other,
as many as each could think of.
465 One remembered thirty
and another thought of twenty.
No one was so young
that he could only recall seven rulers.23
When this question was fully answered
470 (as I have now sung it to you),
Dracula said: “Tell me,
how is it that you
have had so many rulers and lords
in your domain?
475 The cause for this disgrace must
be your shameful defiance!”
He treated them all the same,
seizing all of them, young and old,
and violently impaling them.

23  At issue here, in fact, is the number of regime changes, and not the number of persons
who ruled, since each voievod could have several reigns, as was the case especially be-
tween 1419 and 1447.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 331

480 Their number was about 500.24

Dracula had a concubine who
claimed that she
was with child.
Dracula had her examined
485 within a short time by another woman.
This one confirmed the story
that the concubine had told.
Dracula then took his mistress
and had her ripped open, fully,
490 from the pudenda upwards,
saying that he wished to observe his fruit,
as well as his noble offspring’s
positioning—where it lay in the mother.
After the birth of Christ, people
495 record the year as 1460.
[Then] on St. Bartholomew’s Day,
Dracula and his retinue
went through the forest early one morning.25
All the Wallachians, young and old,
500 large and small:
Both sexes he attacked.
He followed a circuitous course
half way through Amlaș.26
The people he could get hold of
505 he quickly brought together
and murdered them.
Using crampons, hooks, and pitchforks,
[Dracula’s men] herded the people together
and hacked them up in tiny pieces, like cabbage,
510 with knives, swords and sabers.
Those he himself did not slay there,
he had transported home,

24  Manifestly a gross exaggeration. The number should be divided by six, if not more.
25  The Saxons of Transylvania called the duchy of Amlaș or Amnaș the “Land vor dem
Wald,” or “Unterwald.” A fief of the Wallachian princes, the duchy consisted of seven
Romanian villages situated around the Saxon village of Amnaș, which were administered
by Wallachian princely officials.
26  In Beheim’s German, “Humlate.”
332 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

where they were impaled in gruesome fashion.

All the villages he burned to the ground,
515 including the goods and assets therein.
You should truly know this!
The number of these people
(as revealed to us)
amounted to much more than 30,000—
520 both young and old.
The year, as they reckon it, was 1462.
Then Dracula came
to Nikopolis the Great,27 where
525 he murdered people
(as we have heard).
[The number was] about 25,000
Christians and heathens of all sorts.
There was so much grief and wailing
530 that anyone would have trembled from horror.
Among these were the most beautiful women
that anyone had ever seen.
They had been kept
by courtiers who
535 entreated Dracula
that he not have the women murdered,
but allow them to become their lawful wives.
But Dracula would have none of this.
Both women and courtiers he had
540 minced like cabbage.
Dracula, as head of a tributary land, paid tribute
to the Turkish sultan [Mehmed II]. For that reason
[this man] sent an emissary,
as well as some counselors and Turks.
545 They came to Dracula,
demanding of him
their lord’s delayed tribute.
Dracula stated: “I wish
to make the payment personally.

27  In Beheim’s German, “Gen Schiltern in dy grossen.” Also known as Schiltau, and both a
confusion with Schistau (Șistov).
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 333

550 This seems right to me.”

When the Turks learned that
Dracula himself would go to the sultan,28
everyone was overjoyed.
But Dracula had them [brought] to him, then
555 put on a sharpening wheel (as I heard told),
painfully tormenting and torturing them—
then slew them all.
The Turkish secretary had his
nose and mouth cut and snipped;
560 then he was sent home.
The whole region and environs
(called Bulgaria)29
were set ablaze.
The men that he slew there,
565 they estimate,
calculate and judge,
at around 25,000—
not counting those consumed
in fire. This perfidious monster
570 caused terrible havoc.
One territory and a whole land
had the name Făgăraș.30
He ordered a general massacre there.
Old and young, men and women
575 All he had killed
and impaled.
Envoys from Siebenbügen
saw in Wallachia
people arranged in a row
580 whom he had had impaled and strangled.
They hung, without number,
on poles as in a vast forest.
There were numberless people
that he skinned, boiled, roasted, violated,

28  In Beheim’s German, “kaiser.”

29  In Beheim’s German, “Pulgrei.”
30  In Beheim’s German, “Fugrach.”
334 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

585 tortured, drowned, stoned—these and

many other sorts of deaths.
Now, listen, how things went!
Certain of his counselors,
those he trusted most
590 when dealing with confidential matters,
had helped him conceal all
his objects of value and precious possessions.
He decapitated them with his own hands
so that his treasure would not be
595 disclosed or revealed
(whether it be stored in a cavern or in a vault),
as to its hiding place.
He did many worse things—
this despot and sinful villain—
600 causing everyone great dread.
He had some compatriots
decapitated, taking the heads
which he used to lure crayfish.
Afterwards the scoundrel
605 invited friends of the deceased to dine.
Listen, there are still more indignities
and evil things
that this villainous person, tyrant,
and evil despot committed!
610 I will sing to you about them.
These crayfish the treacherous fellow
gave to guests to eat,
then saying: “You have tasted
and eaten the heads of your friends.”
615 After he had told them that,
he had them impaled.
In his country, he
saw a peasant working
with a short shirt on and spoke:
620 “Please inform me.
Do you have a wife?” “Yes, my lord.”
Dracula said: “Well, bring her to me, then!”
The peasant presented his wife.
Dracula then interrogated her:
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 335

625 “Tell me: Which tasks do you perform?”

She said: “Lord, now I’ll tell you.
I cook, weave, wash and bake.”
He had her impaled at once
because she dressed her husband
630 so neglectfully.
She had not made for him
a shirt (called a ‘pfait’) long enough so that
others would not see his breeches.
By so doing, Dracula freed the peasant from this wife,
635 now presenting him with another woman to wed.
Dracula claimed: “It is shameful
when a man must wear a shirt that is too short.
Make him a longer one,
or I will impale you
640 in short order!”
Two monks of Saint Bernard who
were wearing wooden clogs
came to Dracula.
Alms they
645 desired of him and made their request
of one accord.
Dracula said to them:
“How is it that you are so poverty-stricken?”
They answered: “My lord, Eternal Life
650 we hope to attain with our way of living.”
Thereupon he asked of the two brothers:
“Don’t you desire to get [to heaven] soon?”
They said: “Your worship, yes! We
wished that we were already there—
655 if this be the Lord God’s will!”
He said: “I will help you quickly
get to heaven.”
Promptly, he had them impaled,
saying: “I did it for honorable reasons.
660 My assistance can only profit them.”
These same two good brothers
had left their donkey standing there
in Dracula’s courtyard
where their sustenance (food and bread)
336 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

665 and whatever God had bestowed upon them

was to be found.
This beast went into the castle,
braying loudly.
Dracula said: “See what might be
670 causing such a racket!”
His servants said: “These two
monks left behind a jackass;
it is making all this noise.”
He responded: “No doubt, it also
675 would gladly go to heaven with its masters!
Perhaps I need to help it
come to them as quickly as possible.”
Dracula then took the donkey
and had it impaled forthwith—
680 close by the brother monks.
Dracula came into Wallachia,
riding from Serbia,
where he had also incited murder.
Not far from his residence
685 there was a monastery named Gorrion31—
a foundation for the order of barefoot monks.
A quarter of a mile away
Dracula met the father superior
walking with his monks.
690 They had, for a time,
collected alms in
the villages. They had just come
together, one with the other.
Now, listen to the trickery of the villainous man!
695 This superior was named Brother Hans;
the second was called Brother Michael;
Brother Jacob was the third.
Dracula called quickly to Michael,
saying: “Monk, come over here

31  In Beheim’s German, “Gorrion.” Possibly Gornji Grad (German Oberburg, Obernburg)
in Slovenia. Cf. Florescu and McNally, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces, 196–197, relying on
Cazacu.
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 337

700 quickly. And don’t delay!”

Brother Michael came over to him.
Dracula asked him
whether he yet was convinced
and sure that Dracula could be saved,
705 notwithstanding [the monk’s] awareness
of the host of people
to be seen in Heaven—
all the people that Dracula had slain.
One was to pray assiduously for him
710 to God with imploration and pleading—
inasmuch as he [Dracula] had created many saints
and had sent many to Heaven.
In fact, there could be no doubt that
[he believed himself to be] the holiest man
715 that a mother had ever given birth to.
For this there could be no disproof.
Brother Michael said: “Sire,
you may well find mercy
since God has granted grace to many a man
720 appearing to be far from favor.”
And Brother Hans, the guardian,
Dracula also asked to come quickly,
saying: “Brother Monk, now tell me,
what do you think will be my fate?”
725 The monk answered: “Great pain and woe
and miserable lamentation
will, for you, be never ending
because, wretched despot,
so much innocent blood
730 had been spilt and shed by your hands.
Unless Satan
refuses you, you will fully be his,
up to your arm-pits in perdition.
I know full well that I must perish
735 for these pronouncements—by reason only
of this discord and defamation.
I hence ask for this chance
to finish saying what I have to say.”
Dracula responded: “Talk all you want!
338 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

740 I shall not hasten you;

your neck is on the line, after all!”
The monk spoke: “You worthless devil,
you pitiless murderer!
You raging, frightful despot!
745 You spiller-of-blood and tyrant!
How you torture poor souls!
What harm have pregnant women done
to deserve impalement?
What did the little children ever do to you
750 that you would take away their lives—
some being three days old;
some not yet three hours old?
These you command to be impaled,
though no one has done you ill.
755 And you pour forth the blood
of the innocents.
What is the crime
of those who have lost their lives,
whose pure and tender blood
760 you spill prodigiously without cause?
Your murderous enmity amazes me.
What is it that you are avenging? This
you should make clear to me.”
Dracula said: “This I shall
765 tell you straight away.
He who wishes to clear the ground for plowing
should start things off properly.
This means not only cutting down
thorns and weeds that have grown up,
770 but paying heed to their roots.
For, if the roots are left behind,
in a year one will again find
rude, malevolent thorns.
In these little children here,
775 I would have created the gravest enemies,
had I let them grow to adulthood.
No, I wish to weed them out now,
before they sprout roots.
Surely they would resolve
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 339

780 to avenge their fathers.”

The monk spoke: “Wicked despot,
do you think that you ever,
and forever, shall live?
Now, take heed of the blood of innocents
785 that you have made flow in this place.
The whole of these will rise up
before God in Heaven
and shout out for vengeance.
You dumb fool and simpleton:
790 Down deep, you are like a Tartar!”32
Dracula grabbed the monk without delay
and began to impale him himself—
but not like the others.
The others got the pole
795 from the rear end, but this time
he changed the place of impalement.
One pole (or pike)
Dracula himself hammered into his brain.
[The monk’s] head was at the bottom, and his feet
800 were facing upwards.
Dracula set the stake in front of the monastery.
This frightened the poor monks greatly.
They feared for their lives.
Some abandoned the place.
805 Brother Jacob, whom I previously
mentioned, [traveled] with ferrymen
to Styria.33
He went, in [Wiener] Neustadt,34 near
the court of our lord, the emperor [Frederick III],
810 to a monastery as soon as he could.
I, myself, Michel Beheim,
often visited this monk.
He told me about much wickedness
that Dracula, the ruler, had wrought.

32  In Beheim’s German, “dein wesen ist tarleiche.”

33  In Beheim’s German, “Steirmark.”
34  In Beheim’s German, “Newenstat.”
340 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

815 I have only versified for you a little

concerning this good-for-nothing.
Yet more regarding his malicious behavior
and knavery I have to tell.
There are so many evil actions—
820 more than has been told.
Around 300 Gypsies
came into Dracula’s land.
Now listen to what happened!
Dracula, in Wallachia,
825 selected the three most notable among them
and had them roasted.
And the other Gypsies
were forced to eat them all up—
every person in the group,
830 whether large or small.
Dracula spoke: “Now must
each devour the other, from
the smallest to the largest,
until you all are eaten up—
835 unless, you immediately
carry out my wishes
and move against the Turks.”35
They said: “Gracious sir,
this distance is not too great for us.
840 We will do as you wish.”
Dracula then took hides of cattle,
using these to conceal the steeds and riders
of the group of Gypsies.
He then had them travel forth.
845 The Turks went out to meet them.
They met each other, and
when the heathen’s horses
heard the commotion and
saw the cowhide
850 on horse and man,
they shied away and fled.
The Turks had to follow,

35  In Beheim’s German, “Türken,” but a few lines later without the umlaut (“Turken,” l. 852).
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 341

not able to hold them back.

They raced, in haste, toward water
855 and the Gypsies pursued them
into the watery depths.
All the heathens drowned
because their horses had brought them there.
On their mounts, every last heathen
860 went under the water.
The ill, blind, disabled, lame,
beggars, poor people, and
anyone that he [Dracula] could lay hold of:
all these he invited to his castle.
865 When the banquet was concluded,
he had all present
burned to death in a derelict barn.
He said: “These people have no value.”
There were 600 or more—
870 but no survivors!
Some Italians,36 so I am told,
were sent to him as ambassadors.
When they arrived,
their hats and hoods
875 they removed before the ruler—
as I have learned.
Under his hat
each man wore a beret,
a little skullcap, that he did not remove—
880 as is the Italian custom.
Dracula asked about this practice,
what its sense and meaning might be,
namely that they had removed hoods—
hats, too—
885 but had left the little berets on their heads.
They explained: “To do this
is our wont.
Even in the presence of the emperor we
never remove the beret—

36  In Beheim’s German, “Wahlen;” singular form a few lines later, “als dann der Walch noch
tute” (l. 880).
342 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

890 in no wise.”
Dracula said: “Your practice
I wish to make a peculiar right
and to confirm it.”
They thanked him effusively
895 and said: “Most esteemed lord,
of your gracious behavior
we shall try to prove worthy.
Since you show us such favor,
we shall proclaim your praises,
900 turning away from you never.”
The fanatical despot, tyrant,
and murderer proceeded to take
strong nails made of iron
and had them all around—you had better believe this!—
905 nailed into the berets on their heads,
so that they neither could remove them,
nor have these fall off.
Thus, he affirmed
their custom. This kind of inclination
910 always guided his actions.
The evil deeds that he was able to think of
(and in many ways brought to fruition),
were so many in number and of such magnitude
that I would be hard-pressed to comprehend them.
915 For this reason, here I
wish to attempt to (mention) them and to let that suffice.
Whoever was capable of conceiving the heights of wickedness,
that person was his most trusted adviser.
He exercised political authority
920 with the worst sort of thugs
that one might find on the earth.
These he held in the highest regard.
No matter where they came from—
be it Hungary, Serbia,
925 Turkey, or the land of the Tartars37—
he received them with open arms.
His courtly custom was pure wildness.

37  In Beheim’s German, “Auss Ungern oder der Sirvei, / von Turken oder Tartarei.”
Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 343

Rare to find there dignity, honor, and good breeding.

His rule was monstrous;
930 it was the image of evil.
His servants and his courtly retinue
were so disloyal, pernicious,
and false in all things
that no-one ever—at any time—
935 could trust the other.
They harbored no community.
for they had many customs
and spoke all kinds of languages.
They were a conglomeration of peoples. From many a land,
940 they had ridden to his court.
This is why one cannot speak of any inclination
to be mindful of Dracula’s conduct—
lack of unity or accord was the cause.
His vices and wantonness, these
945 would not have so long endured,
had there not been
disunity and discord—
as I have now sung to you.
He had committed many a wicked deed
950 against God, reputation, and justice.
As I sang to you before, Dracula had
done the Turk ill with his tricks.
He [the Sultan], motivated very much by anger and impatience,
955 directed thoughts of ill-will
toward Dracula,
wondering how he might avenge himself.
By oral and written report in his lands,
he spread the word
960 to many an insolent heathen.
Upon learning
that these Turks—in frightful fashion—
intended to attack him
with overwhelming force,
965 he well realized that
opposition would be futile.
To go against an army of this size
would be useless. No resistance was possible.
The Turk would take the upper hand
344 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

970 and remove him from the throne.

“I shall try, if possible
to appeal to [the Sultan’s] mercy and good will.”
These were the thoughts of this dreadful man.
At once he sent tidings
975 to this very heathen.
To the ruler of the Turks38
he let it be known:
If the Sultan would offer him mercy,
forgiving past actions,
980 maltreatment, and harm
that Dracula had committed,
then Dracula wished to make amends
and to give restitution for everything.
[In addition] King Matthias, ruler of Hungary,
985 and his most excellent counselors [Dracula] would
summon, lay hold of,
and place in his hands.
The Turk responded to him that,
if he did this, he would be forgiven
990 for past wrongs—thus wiping the slate clean.
Dracula was to warrant the same,
write, seal, and send [the pledge].
The Turk was overjoyed
to have this agreed to,
995 because he had no greater enemy [than Matthias]
in all of Christendom.
Concerning this matter, Dracula
formulated a plan,
what might be best to do,
1000 so that things would take place as conceived.
Without losing any time
he wrote to the Hungarian king
that this monarch, in actions against the Turk,
should come at lightning speed to his aid,

38  In Beheim’s German, “türkischen kaiser.”

Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei 345

1005 because in such peril there was no-one

who might better come to his rescue.
There was no soul
in the whole world to call on.
Since he [Dracula] was his servant, his liegeman,
1010 and vassal,
[Matthias] certainly wished neither to leave his servitor in the lurch
nor to allow the Hungarian crown
to be severed from association with Wallachia.
The King of Hungary gathered
1015 a great force (as we are told)
and set out thence.
He left the city of Buda39
with his army, taking the shortest path
to Kronstadt in Siebenbürgen.40
1020 He was accompanied by many counts,
barons, lords, knights, and squires.
Pageantry, abounding in sound,
was manifest in that place.
And Dracula, too, came,
1025 bringing a large company with him.
[………. Here a line is missing from Beheim’s text ……….]
Five weeks or longer
they remained together.
During this time, the king had learned
1030 of the underhanded crime
and murderous treason
that Dracula had put in readiness in Turkey
with the heathen.
The King of Hungary pretended
1035 that he did not know
the extent of these things.
With regard to Dracula the ruler,
King Matthias had laid his own snares.
They made plans to depart from the place

39  In Beheim’s German, “der stat Oven.”

40  In Beheim’s German, “gen Sibenburgen in Kranstat.”
346 Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei

1040 to bring this Turk [the Sultan] woe.

They passed first through Wallachia
then proceeded toward Turkey—
onward to the wicked heathen.
They went together.
1045 With them journeyed many a brave man—
in both armies.
They traveled awhile
from the place that I mentioned before
to Wallachia.
1050 They had gone perhaps six miles.
Dracula believed that he was home,
since they were near
a castle called Königstein.41
At that place Dracula was set upon
1055 by a lord, liegeman of the king.
He was known far and wide:
Jan Giskra,42 he was called,
he who first approached Dracula,
arresting and taking him prisoner,
1060 [Dracula] the cowardly one.
In Wallachia, his land,
Dracula was shackled and kept under restraint.
This was done [in Wallachia]
because he was [there] bereft of both this king’s safe conduct
1065 and protection,
being outside [Matthias’] area of administration.
In Hungary, Dracula
was delivered over to the king and conducted to
a castle called Visegrád.43
1070 He has been incarcerated since then.

41  In Beheim’s German, “Kungstain.” This is Piatra Craiului, in Wallachia.

42  In Beheim’s German, “Jon Isgra.”
43  In Beheim’s German, “Jersiu.”
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ (Laonikos
Chalkokondyles, c. 1423–c. 1474)
Historiarum Demonstrationes (Proofs of History)

Translated by Anthony Kaldellis

Vol. 2, 9.82 The sultan1 spent that winter2 in his palace and summoned Vlad, the son
of Dracul and ruler of Wallachia,3 as he already had his younger brother4 at the court,
keeping him as his lover and maintaining him. It happened that the sultan was almost
killed by the boy when he had wanted to have sex with him. This was when he had
first gained the throne and was preparing to campaign against Karaman. He was in
love with the boy and invited him for conversation, and then as a sign of his respect he
invited him for drinks to his bedchamber. The boy did not expect to suffer such a thing
from the sultan, and when he saw the sultan approaching him with that intention, he
fought him off and refused to consent to intercourse with him. The sultan kissed the
unwilling boy, who drew a dagger and struck the sultan on his thigh. He then fled in
whatever direction he could find. The doctors were able to treat the sultan’s wound.
The boy had climbed up a tree there and was hiding. When the sultan packed up and
left, the boy came down from the tree, began his journey, and shortly afterward, arrived
at the Porte and became the sultan’s lover. The sultan was used to having relations no
less with men who shared his own inclinations. For he was always spending his time
in the close company of such people, both day and night, but he did not usually have
relations with men who were not of his own race, except for brief periods of time.
9.83 It was the sultan who had entrusted Vlad [III], the brother of this boy, with
the rule of Wallachia. With the sultan’s assistance, Vlad, the son of Dracul, set out to
claim the principality. When he took over, he first created a corps of bodyguards for
himself, who lived with him, and then he summoned separately each of the distin-
guished men of the realm who, it was believed, had committed treason during the

[Editor’s note]: Kaldellis’ translation was originally published in his Laonikos Chalkokondyles:
The Histories, vol. 2, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, vol. 34 (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2014), pp. 367/401. Notes in this version—particularly vis-à-vis names
and toponyms—largely represent Cazacu’s emendations and clarifications in his Dracula,
pp. 413–425.
1  I.e., Mehmed II “The Conqueror.”
2  I.e., the winter of 1461–62.
3  I.e., Vlad III Dracula “The Impaler,” son of Vlad II Dracul.
4  I.e., Radu III “The Handsome” (1462–1473).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_015

348 ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ

transfer of power there. He killed them all by impalement, them and their sons, wives,
and servants, so that this one man caused more murder than any other about whom
we have been able to learn. In order to solidify his hold on power, they say that in a
short time he killed twenty thousand men, women, and children. He established good
soldiers and bodyguards for his own use, and he granted them the money, property,
and other goods of his victims, so that he quickly effected a great change and utterly
revolutionized the affairs of Wallachia. He also worked widespread murder among the
Hungarians, those who seemed to be involved in public affairs, sparing none.
9.84 When he decided that the affairs of Wallachia were secure enough for him,
he planned to rebel against the sultan. But he had punished those other men with the
consent of the sultan, on the premise that he5 would thereby strengthen his author-
ity and have no more trouble from the leading men of Wallachia who were changing
their allegiance and bringing in the Hungarians as their allies and accomplices. That
was how things were done. But then during the winter it was reported to the sultan
that Vlad was planning a rebellion to change the status quo, and that he had turned
to the Hungarians, had come to an agreement with them, and made an alliance. The
sultan took this matter most seriously and sent one of the leading men of his Porte,
a Greek secretary,6 to summon Vlad to the Porte and say that, when he came into his
presence at the Porte, he would suffer no harm at the hands of the sultan but rather
would regain favor and blessing, and would not be overlooked by the sultan if he truly
supported the sultan’s interests.
9.85 So Mehmed sent Katabolinos, the secretary of the Porte, to Vlad with the
above instructions. But he sent secret instructions to Hamza, who was known as the
Falconer and had been appointed to govern a large extent of territory along the Danube
and also the prefecture of Vidin: if possible, he was to capture the man by guile. The
sultan would be personally gratified if, by guile or whatever other means, he would be
able to capture him. So he gave orders through the same secretary for the man’s arrest.
They took counsel regarding this matter and decided it would be most effective if they
set an ambush in advance for Vlad there, in that land, when he joined up to escort the
secretary, and thus make the arrest. And the secretary would indicate to Hamza when
he was about to depart. That, then, is what the secretary did: he signaled the moment
when he was to depart and Vlad would have to join in escorting him, and Hamza set
the ambushes in that very place.
9.86 But Vlad and his men were armed and, when he joined in escorting the lord
of the Porte of that region and the secretary, he fell into the ambush. As soon as Vlad
realized what was happening, he ordered his men to arrest them and their servants.
And when Hamza came against him, Vlad fought bravely, routed and captured him,

5  It is not clear whether this is Vlad or the sultan; probably the former.
6  I.e., Thomas Katabolinos, named in the next section; he was also known as Yunus Beg.
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ 349

and killed a few of those who fled. After capturing them, he led them all away to be
impaled, but first he cut off the men’s limbs. He had Hamza impaled on a higher stake,
and he treated their retinues in the same way as their own lords. Immediately after
that he prepared as large an army as he could and marched directly to the Danube,
and crossed through the regions there by the Danube and the land that belonged to
the sultan, killing everyone, women and children included. He burned the houses, set-
ting fire wherever he moved. Having worked this great slaughter, he returned back to
Wallachia.7
9.87 When these events were reported to Sultan Mehmed, namely that his envoys
had been killed by Vlad, the ruler of Wallachia, and that Hamza, a man esteemed at
the sultan’s Porte, had died like that as if of no account, he became angry, as was only
to be expected. He took this even more seriously, namely he could not overlook the
fact that such men had been killed and that Vlad had reached such a height of hubris
that he dared to kill his envoys: he could not fail to take vengeance for the murder of
these people, exacting justice from the ruler of Wallachia. He was also angry because
of the following, namely that Vlad had crossed the Danube with a large army, set fire to
the sultan’s land, worked murder upon his people, and then returned home. But in his
estimation the greatest offense was what he had done to his envoys.
9.88 Thus the sultan sent messengers all around to his leading men and the others
in order of rank, commanding them to arm themselves and set out in the most orderly
way, so that his armies could attend him when he marched out. And thus he prepared
the army against the Wallachians. The following is also said, that the report concern-
ing these things had first reached the lord Mahmud, namely about the murder of the
envoys and Hamza the prefect, and the burning of the land, but he had not found a
way of reporting to the sultan what the Wallachians had done to the sultan’s men, and
the sultan had taken this badly. This is not regarded as a particularly shameful thing in
the sultan’s Porte, for these men associated with him in his rule are the sons of slaves
and not of Turks.
9.89 So Mehmed sent heralds everywhere ordering that the army should present
itself to him well armed, and all the cavalry raiders should follow him on this cam-
paign. The sultan’s heralds who convey his messages to the realm and the messengers
who, whenever some disturbance has occurred, go to the Porte in the fastest possible
way, cover the greatest distances in only a few days in the following way. If the mes-
senger sees a horse along his route, he immediately makes the rider dismount from
the horse, commandeers it, and rides with all his might. That horse then goes as far
as it can. He then finds another one, forces the rider to dismount, and gives his pre-
vious horse to the man. And thus, by resting only briefly, they cover great distances.
They dress and equip their entire bodies in such a way that they feel no discomfort or

7  This was in the winter of 1461–62.

350 ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ

fatigue when they are riding. We know of heralds who have made the journey from the
Peloponnese to Adrianople in five days, a distance of fifteen days for any other rider.
These heralds are called ulaks.
9.90 When the sultan’s armies were prepared, he marched out against Wallachia
at the very beginning of the spring.8 They say that this army was huge, second in size
only to the one that this sultan had led against Byzantion.9 It is also said that this camp
was more beautiful than all the others in its orderly arrangement of weapons and gear,
and that its size was two hundred and fifty thousand men. This is easy to calculate from
the contractors who arranged the crossing of the Danube and who bought passage for
the sultan’s men, to the amount of three hundred thousand gold staters,10 and it is said
that they made huge profits.
9.91 The land army set out from Philippopolis,11 while at sea the sultan manned
about twenty-five triremes and about one hundred and fifty ships. He went directly to
the Danube in order to cross it at Vidin, and he ordered these ships to sail across the
Black Sea and into the Danube. As the sultan instructed, the fleet sailed up the Black
Sea to the mouth of the Danube, and when they reached the mouth they went up the
river to Vidin. There the fleet made a landing and set fire to and burned the houses, and
they also set fire to and burned Brăila, the city of the Wallachians, where they provide
the best market of any in that region, and the houses are mostly made of wood.
9.92 When the Wallachians learned that the sultan was attacking them, they
brought their women and children to places of safety, placing some of them on the
mountains of Brașov and others in a town called […]12 which is surrounded on all sides
by a marsh which protected and guarded it and made it most secure, and this provides
safety. Other women they even placed in forests, through which a stranger who was
not local would have a hard time crossing. For the forests are very thick; the trees grow
densely and block passage for the most part. Thus they removed their women and
children to places of safety, while they themselves assembled in one location to follow
Vlad their ruler.
9.93 Vlad divided his army into two parts, keeping one part with him and send-
ing the other against the ruler of Moldavia so that, if the latter made an attempt to
invade, these men would defend their land and not allow him to do so. For the ruler of
Moldavia had fallen out with Vlad and was at war with him for the following reason.13
He had sent envoys to Sultan Mehmed calling on his assistance and saying that he

8  I.e., the spring of 1462.

9  I.e., Mehmed II’s fifty-three day siege of Constantinople, April 6-May 29, 1453.
10  I.e., gold ducats.
11  I.e., Plovdiv.
12  Missing in MS, but probably Bucharest.
13  No reason is given. This was Stephen III the Great, prince of Moldavia (1457–1504).
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ 351

was ready to join him in this war. The sultan was pleased with the ruler’s proposal and
ordered his own general to act accordingly, that is to join with the admiral on the river
and besiege the city called Kilia that belonged to Vlad, which is located at the mouth
of the river. As for the ruler of Moldavia, he assembled an army from his land and went
to the sultan’s fleet, directly to the city of Kilia, in order to join forces with the admiral.
9.94 When the ruler of Moldavia joined up with the sultan’s army, they besieged
the city together. They attacked it for many days but were repulsed and lost a few men.
As they were making no progress toward capturing the city, both of them departed.
The Moldavian then moved to invade the land of the Wallachians, but was prevented
by the unit of Vlad’s army that had been assigned right there to protect the land. Vlad
himself had the larger part of the army and he marched through the forests waiting to
see where the sultan’s army would go.
9.95 As for the sultan, when his armies had crossed the Danube and he had
entered Wallachia, he made no raids. For the sultan did not allow it; instead, he
marched with his army in one formation. He marched directly for the city in which
the Wallachians had placed their women and children for safety, and the Wallachians
followed the sultan through the forests. And if some part of the sultan’s army should
break off, those men would immediately be killed by them. But because no one came
out to challenge him to battle, and as Vlad had not received any assistance from the
Hungarians, the sultan was careless and neglected to make a ditch, so that his camp
spilled out over a broad space.
9.96 When Vlad learned that the enemy was coming against him, he sent a mes-
senger to the Hungarians and said the following: “O Hungarians, you know that our
land borders on your and we both live along the Danube. I believe that you have by
now learned that the sultan of the Turks has marched up against us with a large army.
If he conquers and subjects everything as far as Wallachia, you know that they will not
then stand down and be at peace; rather, they will campaign immediately against you,
and those settled in your land will suffer a horrible fate at their hands. Now is the time
for you, with all the power that you have, to help us keep this army out of our land.
Don’t sit back while it destroys our land, inflicts harm upon it, and destroys our people.
Mehmed also has with him the young brother of our ruler and he will place him as
ruler in Vlachia [i.e., Wallachia], if all his plans go his way.”
9.97 Indeed, as he marched against Wallachia, Mehmed greatly honored and paid
respect to Vlad’s younger brother [Radu III], giving him much money and fine gar-
ments. He instructed him to enter into discussions with the leading men in Wallachia
regarding the management of affairs. The latter was very happy to do what the sultan
asked, and he sent his men. But he made no progress by sending those messages. When
the Hungarians heard what Vlad’s messenger had to say, they heeded his words and set
out to help and defend him as best they could. They assembled an army, and that was
what they were busy with.
352 ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ

9.98 The sultan advanced with his army, burning the towns and plundering
all the pack animals that fell into his hands. The cavalry raiders brought very few slaves
to the camp, but they themselves were being killed in greater numbers, whenever one
of them broke away from the main camp. It is even said that Vlad himself entered as a
spy into the sultan’s camp and went around to observe its conditions. But I cannot be-
lieve that Vlad would willingly expose himself to such a danger, as he would have been
able to use many spies of his own, but this tale, I believe, was made up to give a sense
of his daring. For many days he used to approach very close to the camp and observe
the tents of the sultan and Mahmud, and the marketplace.
9.99 Vlad had fewer than ten thousand cavalry—some say that he did not have
more than seven thousand cavalry—and with them, around the first watch of the
night, he charged and attacked the sultan’s camp.14 At first there was great terror in the
camp, as the sultan’s men believed that some large foreign army had attacked them,
coming from abroad, and they believed that they were utterly doomed, and were re-
duced to great fear and trembling. For Vlad marched with torches and horns, to signal
the attack. The entire camp stayed rooted in place and made no move. For the camps
made by this people are generally accustomed to never move at night under any cir-
cumstance at all, and they remain fixed in their position in case someone tries to steal
into and move throughout the camp, or some other disturbance has taken place. So at
that time the Turks became terrified and were paralyzed, each staying where his tent
was pitched.
9.100 As soon as Vlad attacked the camp, the sultan’s heralds went around inside
the camp proclaiming that no one was to move on pain of death by the sultan. The
sultan’s heralds ordered each person to stay where he had been posted, and they lifted
their spirits with the following words: “Muslims, hold your ground for a short while. For
you will soon see the sultan’s enemy fall in the camp and pay the penalty for all that
he has dared to do against the sultan.” They said that and many other words like it, but
especially this, that “if the army holds its positions, the enemy will then be destroyed,
but if it moves, then all of you will perish; for the sultan will kill you first before he
himself turns to flee.”
9.101 Vlad attacked the camp as quickly as he could, and he first encountered the
army from Asia. They fought briefly there but they were routed and rushed away in
groups in order to save themselves. Vlad had lit torches and fires and his army ad-
vanced in a most orderly and compact way against the enemy. He charged first against
the sultan’s Porte. But they missed the court of the sultan himself and fell instead
upon the tents of the lords, namely of Mahmud and Ishak. A great battle was fought
there and they killed the camels, mules, and pack animals. As they were fighting in
an orderly and compact group, they suffered no losses worth mentioning; but if any

14  The latter became famous as the Night Attack of June 17, 1462.
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ 353

group broke away, they would immediately fall on the spot at the hands of the Turks.
Mahmud’s men fought bravely and with distinction, all of them on foot. But almost
everyone in the camp mounted his horse, except for those in the sultan’s Porte. And
they fought there for a long time. Then they turned and charged against the sultan’s
Porte, but they found the sultan’s men deployed outside the Porte. They fought there
briefly, then turned to the camp’s market, plundered it, and killed anyone who stood in
their way there. With the approach of dawn, Vlad withdrew from the camp, having lost
very few men that night. It is said that few men were killed in the sultan’s camp as well.
9.102 Later, as soon as it was daylight, the sultan selected the leading men who
were under his prefects and appointed Ali Mihaloğlu, their general, with orders to go
after the Wallachians and pursue them as quickly as they could. Ali took the army
and hastened after Vlad; he went after him by marching with all his might. He caught
up with Vlad’s army, attacked it, and killed many, and captured about a thousand
Wallachians whom he brought back to the camp before the sultan. The sultan seized
them all and had them led away to execution. The sultan’s soldiers had, during the
previous night, captured one of Vlad’s soldiers, and they took him to Mahmud who
asked him who he was and where he was from. As he was answering these questions,
Mahmud also asked him if he knew where Vlad, the ruler of the Wallachia, happened
to be. He replied that he knew exactly but would tell them nothing whatsoever about
it, because he feared Vlad. They said that they would kill him if he did not tell them
what they wanted to know, but he said that he was more than ready to die, and would
not dare to reveal anything about the man. Mahmud was amazed by this and, while he
killed the man, he commented that with such fear surrounding him and an army worth
the name, that man would surely go far. That, then, was what happened at that time.
9.103 The sultan advanced from there into the interior of the land and headed
straight for the city where Vlad had his royal court.15 Every night that he halted he
dug a ditch all around the camp, which he reinforced on the inside by blocking it
with barriers; he also increased the number of sentries and ordered that his armies
should be under arms day and night. He advanced thus with his army in formation
into the interior of Wallachia and arrived at the city where Vlad had his royal court.
The Wallachians had prepared to be besieged there by the sultan, but they opened the
gates and were ready to receive the sultan himself as he approached with his army.
The sultan then marched through the city and when he saw no men upon the walls
except for artillerymen who were firing cannons at his army,16 he neither made camp
not invested the place.

15  I.e., Târgoviște.

16  This does not make sense, as the inhabitants were prepared to surrender the city. Possibly
Chalkokondyles meant to say that Mehmed “did not even see” artillerymen on the walls.
354 ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ

9.104 He continued on and, after advancing for twenty-seven stades,17 they beheld
their own men who had been impaled. The sultan’s army entered into the area of the
impalements, which was seventeen stades long and seven stades wide.18 There were
large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and
children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the sultan himself. The sultan
was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country
a man who had done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of
how to govern his realm and its people. And he said that a man who had done such
things was worth much. The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the
multitude of men on the stakes. There were infants too affixed to their mothers on the
stakes, and birds had made their nests in their entrails.
9.105 Vlad followed the sultan’s armies and killed anyone who broke away, wheth-
er cavalry raider or azap. He himself turned to go against the ruler of Moldavia, who, it
was reported to him, was besieging Kilia.19 He left behind an army of about six thou-
sand with orders to follow the sultan through the forests and, if anyone broke away,
to move against him and set upon him. He went against the ruler of Moldavia. But
this army that he left behind, when the sultan was departing, went directly against
his army, as they were encouraged by the fact that the sultan was departing and they
attacked him hoping to achieve a notable success. So they moved directly against the
sultan’s camp and attacked. When the sentries there reported the enemy attack, each
person took up arms, except for those in the sultan’s Porte. Mahmud ordered Yusuf to
go and engage with the enemy. Mahmud and his armies were also under arms. Yusuf
went and immediately attacked, but was defeated and, in his flight, was pushed back
into the sultan’s camp.
9.106 Ömer, the son of Turahan, was also ordered by Mahmud to go against the
enemy. When he advanced, he encountered Yusuf, who was fleeing from the enemy.
Ömer cursed him out, saying, “O wretch, where are you going? Or do you not know how
the sultan will treat you, seeing you in flight? The sultan will be far more ill-disposed
toward you than the enemy would be, and will deliver you immediately over to a hor-
rible death when he realizes that you have fled.” He was exhorting the man with such
words, and so Yusuf turned around, ranged himself with Ömer, the son of Turahan,
and they attacked the enemy together, fighting bravely. Shortly afterward, they routed
the Wallachians and murdered them mercilessly in the pursuit, killing about two thou-
sand. They stuck their heads on spear points and returned to the camp. The sultan

17  I.e., about five kilometers.

18  I.e., three kilometers long and more than a kilometer wide.
19  See 9.93–94 above.
ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ 355

bestowed upon Ömer the command of Thessaly, but Mazak20 was still in that position,
following the sultan with his own good men. That, then, was how the second, daring
Wallachian attack on the sultan’s army fared.
9.107 The sultan led many slaves away from that land, for he henceforth al-
lowed his cavalry raiders to raid extensive tracts of it. They would capture slaves and
profit greatly. They also drove away more than two hundred thousand pack animals,
horses, and cattle. Thus the sultan’s army reached the Danube. The camp feared the
Wallachians no less on account of the great daring that they had displayed, and so
they crossed in great haste. The sultan ordered Ali Mihaloğlu to follow the army from
behind. When he encamped by the Danube, he left [Radu III] Dracul, the brother of
Vlad the ruler, behind in that region to approach the Wallachians and subject the land
to his authority. He also ordered the prefect of that region to exact punishments, while
he himself marched straight back to the palace.
9.108 Dracul the Younger [i.e., Radu] called on each man, saying, “O Wallachians,
what do you think the future holds for you? Do you not know how much power the
sultan has, that his armies will easily be able to reach you, plunder the land, and we
will lose whatever we have left? Why do you not becomes friends of the sultan? There
will then be a respite for you throughout the land and in your households. For you
know that at the present there are no livestock or pack animals left. You have suffered
all these horrible things on account of my brother, and you ingratiate yourselves with
a most unholy man who has brought such harm upon Wallachia as we have not heard
has been visited upon any other part of the earth.”
9.109 Those were the messages that he [i.e., Radu] sent to the Wallachians who
had come to ransom their slaves. He persuaded them and urged them to tell the others
and to come to him with confidence. They met and decided that this was preferable to
Vlad’s rule. A few of them went and assembled around the younger brother. When the
rest of the Wallachians realized this, they immediately abandoned Vlad and went over
to his brother. When his army was assembled, he set out to overturn the principality.
He brought in at the same time an army from the sultan and subjected the land. As for
his brother [Vlad III], when the Wallachians went over to his brother and he realized
that all the murder that he had previously committed was now in vain, he went off to
the Hungarians.

20  On “Mazakes,” see Gyula Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica, vol. 2, Sprachreste der Türkenvölker
in den byzantinischen Quellen, 3rd ed., Berliner byzantinistische Arbeiten, vol. 11 (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag, 1983), 179.
356 ΑΠΟΔΕΙΞEΙΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ

10.1 Those were the events that took place during the sultan’s advance against
the Wallachians. As for Vlad [III], when his brother [Radu III] Dracul moved against
him and subjected the land of Wallachia, he went off to the Hungarians. But the
Hungarians, whose people he had killed in Wallachia, brought him on a capital charge
before their king, the son of Hunyadi,21 and placed him on trial under the most serious
accusations, that is of having killed those men unjustly. They imprisoned him in the
city of Belgrade.

21  I.e., Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490).

Skazanie o Drakule voevode (Fyodor Kuritsyn,
1486)
The Tale of Voievod Dracula

There was [once] in the country of Muntenia1 a Christian voievod of the Greek faith,
whose name in the Vlach language was Dracula, which means “devil” in ours. He was
so evil, that his life was the image of his name.
1. One day ambassadors2 from the [Great] Turk3 came to him, and when they were
brought before him, they bowed according to their custom but did not uncover their
heads. Therefore he asked them: “Why are you behaving this way? You are before a
great sovereign, and you outrage me in this way?” To which they replied: “Such is the
custom of our sovereign and our country.” And Dracula said to them: “Very well, I shall
strengthen you in your custom. Brace yourselves!” And he ordered that their turbans
be nailed to their heads with small iron nails. Then he dismissed them, saying: “Go and
tell your sovereign that if, on his part, he’s accustomed to accept such shamefulness,
we, for our part, are not accustomed to that. [Tell him] that he will not impose his
customs on other sovereigns who do not want them, but let him keep them for himself.
2. And the Turkish emperor was very angry over this and he set forth against
Dracula, and confronted him with large forces. But [Dracula] assembled all the soldiers

[Editor’s note]: This English translation is based on Cazacu’s edition and French transla-
tion (L’histoire du prince Dracula, pp. 172–211). The Skazanie was written most plausibly
by the Russian ambassador, Fyodor Kuritsyn, who had gathered his information in Buda,
Transylvania, and in Moldavia, between 1482 and 1485. The Rumjancev redaction is entitled
“On the Muntenian Voievod.”
1  This is a Moldavian form of the term for Wallachia, first recorded around 1408, and which
translates the Hungarian chancery term “transalpina.” Cf. Costăchescu, ed., Documente
moldovenești înainte de Ștefan cel Mare, vol. 2, p. 632. For discussion of the origin of the name,
see Ion Conea, “O problemă veche, încă nerezolvată: Originea numelui de Muntenia [An
old, unresolved problem: The origin of the name Muntenia],” Probleme de geografie 7 (1960):
27–51. The Russian “Muntjanskoj zemli” literally means “the country of the mountains.”
2  In the original Russian, the term is poklisarie, which will be replaced in the 17th and 18th
century versions by posol”. Both mean “envoy, ambassador.” The etymology of [a]poklisar’ is
Greek (i.e., ἀποκρισιάριος). See Cazacu, L’histoire du prince Dracula, 61.
3  The original text omits the word “emperor, sultan,” which is implied. Compare this epi-
sode with that recorded by Michael Beheim (lines 871–910) and Thomas Ebendorfer, and
likewise the German GDW incunables, which refer to Walhen (“Italians,” for the Saxons of
Transylvania). Bonfini specifies Turks.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_016

358 Skazanie o Drakule voevode

he had and attacked the Turks at night, and killed a large number of them. But he
couldn’t defeat such a large army with so few men, and he withdrew.
He personally examined those who returned from combat with him. Whoever was
wounded in the front, he honored and armed him as a knight. However, he ordered
whoever was wounded in the back to be impaled upwards from the rectum, saying to
him: “You are not a man, but a woman.”4
And when he marched against the Turks, he addressed his entire army with these
words: “Let whoever is thinking of death not come with me, but remain here.” And the
sultan, upon hearing this, retreated in great shame. He lost a huge army, and he [never
again] dared to make war against Dracula.
3. One day the sultan sent [Dracula] an envoy, so that he would pay [the sultan]
tribute. Dracula greatly honored this ambassador, and showing him all that he had,
said to him: “Not only do I wish to pay tribute to the emperor, but I wish to place my-
self once again at his service, with my entire army, and all my treasures. I will serve as
he orders. And you, make this known to your emperor, so that when I come to him, he
shall give orders throughout all his country so that no harm be done to me or my men.
As for me, I shall proceed to the emperor shortly after your departure, and I shall bring
him the tribute and I shall come in person.
When [the sultan] learned from his ambassador that Dracula wished to put himself
at his service, the emperor honored this man, gave him numerous presents, and greatly
rejoiced because, at the time, he was at war with the emperors of the countries of the
east. And he immediately sent messages, to all the cities and everywhere in the coun-
try, not only not to harm, but rather to greatly honor Dracula when he arrived. And
[Dracula] set forth with his whole army, and with him were officers of the emperor
who honored him greatly. And [Dracula] traveled for five days in Turkish country, and
then suddenly turned around and began pillaging the cities and villages. And he cap-
tured a great multitude which he cut to pieces. Some of the Turks he impaled; others
he cut in two and then burned. He devastated the whole country and left no one alive,
not even infants. But others, that is to say those who were Christians, he displaced and
settled in his country. And after taking much booty he returned home. And, after hav-
ing honored the officers, he released them saying: “Go and tell your emperor what you
have seen. I have served him as much as I am able. If my service has been agreeable
to him, I will serve again with all my forces.” And the emperor could do nothing against
him, but was shamefully defeated.

4  Chalkokondyles and Nicholas of Modrussa, in comparison, relate that the night attack been
led by two bodies of the army, one of which was commanded by the voievod in person, and
the other probably by the great seneschal. The troops of the latter conducted themselves
much worse, and so we might suppose that Dracula adopted this punishment because he
suspected treason or cowardice.
Skazanie o Drakule voevode 359

4. [Dracula] hated evil in his country so much that whoever committed a mis-
deed—whether it was theft, armed robbery, lying, or injustice—had no chance of
remaining alive. No one—[no matter] whether he was a great boyar, priest, monk,
commoner, or very wealthy man—could buy his life. And such fear he inspired [can
be seen from the following]. He possessed a spring and a fountain by which would
pass many travelers, from many lands. Many people came to drink at this spring
and fountain, because its water was cool and tasted good. Dracula had placed near this
fountain, [which was] situated in a deserted place, a great cup of marvelously worked
gold. And whoever wished to drink might use this cup, and return it to where he had
found it. And as long as it was there, no one dared to steal it.
5. One day [Dracula] had it announced throughout all his land that those who were
old and sick, suffering from maladies, or were destitute, should come to him. And he
assembled a huge crowd of the poor and vagabonds, who were expecting great [acts of]
charity from him. He ordered them all to gather in a great house, deliberately prepared
[for this], and commanded that they be served food and drink as much as they wanted.
Then, after they had eaten, they began to amuse themselves. Dracula now came in
person to visit them and said: “What else do you need?” And they said in unison: “Lord,
only God and Your Highness know [the answer], and God will make you understand
[it].” He then said: “Do you wish me to make it so that you have no more cares, and lack
nothing in this world?” And they all, anticipating some great [act of] generosity, said:
“We wish it, Lord.” At this he ordered the house to be locked and set on fire and they all
perished, burned [to death]. As this was happening he said to his boyars: “Know that I
have done this so that, first of all, they will no longer be a burden for others, and that
there shall be no more poor in my country, and all will be rich. Second, I have delivered
them [from this life] so they will no longer suffer poverty in this world, or any other
sort of malady.”
6. There came one day, from the country of Hungary, two Catholic monks to col-
lect alms. [Dracula] ordered them to be hosted separately. He invited one of them to
his home and showed him, outside his court, a great many people impaled or broken
on the wheel, and asked him: “Have I acted well? How do you judge those who are
[impaled] on these stakes?” The other responded: “No, Lord, you have acted badly, be-
cause you punish without mercy. It becomes a master to show mercy, and those you
have impaled are martyrs.” Dracula then called for the second monk and asked him the
same question. The monk replied: “You have been placed here by God as a sovereign to
punish those who have done evil and to reward those who have done good. And those
who have done evil have received what they deserve.” Dracula then summoned back
the second monk and said to him: “Why have you left your monastery and your cell
and come to the courts of great sovereigns, being so ignorant? You come to tell me that
these people are martyrs; I likewise wish to make you a martyr, so you will be a martyr
at their sides.” Then he ordered the monk impaled upwards from the rectum. And he
360 Skazanie o Drakule voevode

also ordered that the second be given fifty golden ducats and said to him: “You are a
wise man.” And he ordered that he be returned with honor to Hungary, in a carriage.
7. One day, a foreign merchant from Hungary arrived in Dracula’s city. Following
[Dracula’s] orders, he left his carriage in the street before the house, leaving behind
his merchandise in the vehicle, while he spent the night in the house. [During the
night,] someone stole one hundred sixty gold ducats from the carriage. The mer-
chant presented himself to Dracula to tell him about the loss of his gold. Dracula said:
“You may depart in peace. Tonight your gold will be returned to you.” And he gave
orders to search for the thief throughout the entire city, saying: “If the thief is not
found, I’ll obliterate the entire city.” And he ordered that the [one hundred sixty] gold
[coins] belonging to the merchant be placed in the carriage at night, but to these he
added one coin. Upon rising, the merchant found the gold, and upon counting it twice,
found one extra coin. He went to Dracula and said: “Sire, I have recovered my gold, but
behold, there is one extra coin that does not belong to me.” At that moment, the thief
with the stolen gold was brought [before Dracula]. And Dracula addressed the mer-
chant: “Go in peace. And if you had not told me of this extra piece of gold, I was ready
to impale you along with the thief.”
8. If a married woman committed adultery, [Dracula] would have her private parts
cut off, and [she would be] flayed alive and put in irons, entirely naked. Then he would
order her skin to be hung on a post right in the center of the city, in the marketplace.
He would do the same with girls who did not preserve their virginity, and with widows
[who committed fornication]. With some, he would cut off the ends of their breasts;
with others, he would flay their genitals and then force red hot pokers into them—so
deeply that they came out their mouths. And they remained naked, attached to a pole,
until their flesh and bones fell off, or served as food for birds.
9. One day when he was traveling, [Dracula] saw a poor fellow with a shirt that was
torn, and in bad condition. He asked him: “Do you have a wife?” The other responded:
“Yes, sire.” Then Dracula said to him: “Bring me to your home so I may see her.” And
he saw that he did have a wife, young and in good health. Then he said to her hus-
band: “Have you sown the flax?” The other responded: “Yes, sire, I have much flax.” And
he showed him [that he had] a lot of flax. And Dracula said to the woman: “Why do
you display such laziness towards your husband? His duty is to sow, labor, and feed you,
while his expectation is that you make him good and handsome clothes; however,
you do not even wish to make him a shirt, even though you are in good health. You are
the guilty one, not him. If your husband had not sown the flax, then he would be at
fault. And he ordered that her hands be cut off and then she was impaled.
10. One day [Dracula] was feasting in the shade of a great number of corpses, im-
paled around his table. It is among them that he would eat and take his pleasure. It
happened that there was a servant who had placed the dishes before him, but who
could not bear the stench of the corpses, and he held his nose and turned his head.
Dracula asked him: “Why are you doing that?” The servant answered: “Sire, I can no
Skazanie o Drakule voevode 361

longer endure this stench.” To this Dracula ordered that he be impaled immediately,
saying: “You need to reside up there, so the stench will not reach you.”
11. Another time he received a visit from an ambassador of the king of Hungary,
Matthias. The ambassador was a great noble of Polish origin. Dracula ordered him to
remain with him at table, amidst the corpses, [before] a very large stake, tall and com-
pletely gilded. And Dracula asked the ambassador: “Tell me, why have I had this stake
placed here?” And the ambassador, who was very afraid, responded: “Sire, it seems to
me that a great man has committed a crime in your eyes, and that you desire to re-
serve for him a death more honorable than [a death normally reserved] for others. And
Dracula said to him: “You have spoken well. Indeed, you are the royal ambassador of a
great sovereign, and I have had this stake made for you.” The ambassador responded:
“Sire, if I have committed a crime which merits death, do what seems good to you, be-
cause you are an impartial judge and it is not you who will be responsible for my death,
but me alone.” Dracula burst out laughing and said to him: “If you had not responded
in this way, truly you would have been on this stake.” And he honored him greatly, gave
him many gifts, and let him leave, saying: “You can truly be the ambassador of great
sovereigns, [on missions to other] great sovereigns, because you have learned the art
of speaking to great sovereigns. However others shouldn’t dare [to do this], without
having learned to speak to great sovereigns.
12. Dracula had the following habit. Whenever an ambassador from the emperor
[Sultan] or the King [of Hungary] arrived who was not attired with distinction, and
did not know how to respond to [Dracula’s] tortuous questions, he had him impaled,
saying: “I am not the one responsible for your death, but your sovereign or yourself. Do
not speak ill of me. If your sovereign, knowing that you have few brains and are with-
out knowledge, sent you to me—a very wise sovereign—then it is your lord who has
killed you. However if you have dared to come here yourself, without being instructed,
then you have killed yourself.” For such an ambassador he had a tall stake, fully gilded,
set up and [he was] fixed upon it. And to the sovereign of this ambassador he would
write, among other things, these words: “No longer send, as envoy to a wise sovereign,
a feeble-minded and ignorant man.”
13. [One time] artisans made barrels of iron for him. He filled them with gold and
sank them to the bottom of a river; then he killed the artisans so that no one would
know the crime he had committed, except the devil whose name he bore.
14. One time the King of Hungary, Matthias, set forth to wage war against him.
Dracula came to meet him, and they clashed and fought with one another, and Dracula
was taken alive as prisoner, having been delivered by his men because of a revolt.5 And
Dracula was brought to the king who threw him in prison. And he remained for twelve

5  In the original Russian: “i ouxvatiša Drakoulou živa ot svoix” izdaně po kramolě.” The prepo-
sition “po” with “kramola” in the dative expresses causality of the action, i.e., “because of a
revolt.”
362 Skazanie o Drakule voevode

years in Visegrád on the Danube, up from Buda. And in Muntenia, [King Matthias]
installed another prince.
15. After the death of that voievod, the king conveyed to Dracula in prison that, if
he wished to become Prince of Muntenia as before, he should embrace the Latin faith,
and if not, he would die in prison. However Dracula loved the pleasures of this tran-
sient world more than those of eternal life, without end, and he abjured Orthodoxy
and renounced the truth, and he abandoned light and accepted darkness. Alas, he
could not endure the temporary miseries of prison and he was prepared for unend-
ing sufferings, and left our Orthodox faith and accepted the Latin heresy. The king not
only gave him the voievodate of the country of Muntenia, but also his own sister for his
wife. From her he had two sons, and he still lived a short time after, around ten years,
and thus ended [his life] in this heresy.
16. It is said of him that even in prison [Dracula] didn’t renounce his bad habits. He
took mice, and bought birds in the market, and tormented them as follows. Some he
impaled; of others he cut off their heads; and from others he plucked out [the feath-
ers], and then let them go.6 And he learned to sew, and thus he provided for himself.
17. When the king threw him in prison, he had him brought to Buda and gave him
a house in Pest, across from Buda. And before Dracula was [brought to reside with]
the king, it happened that a criminal sought refuge in his house. Those pursuing him
entered in turn, began to search for him and [then] found him. Dracula jumped from
the house, drew his sword, and cut off the head of the sergeant7 who had taken the
criminal, and then freed the latter. The others fled and ran to tell the mayor8 what had
happened. And the mayor and his aldermen9 proceeded to the king to lodge a com-
plaint against Dracula. The king sent [someone] to Dracula’s house to question him,
[asking]: “Why have you committed this crime?” But Dracula responded in this way: “I
have done nothing wrong, but he has killed himself. All those who break into the house
of a great sovereign as thieves shall likewise perish. If the mayor had come to me and
had explained [the affair], and if I had found the criminal in my house, I would have
delivered him myself or I would have spared him of his life.” When this was told to the
king, he burst into laughter and marveled at [Dracula’s] courage.

6  Information persistently spread by the court at Buda, and which the bishop of Erlau repeated
in 1476: “Sed, nec ibi feritatis oblitus, mures capiebat et, membratim divisos, parvis ligneis
claviculis, prout homines palis consueverat, affigebat.” See Cazacu, “Le Thème de Dracula
(XVe–XVIIIe siècle),” 443.
7  The Russian term is pristav.
8  The Russian term is birev” (from the Hungarian bíro, “judge”). Cf. Cazacu, L’histoire du prince
Dracula, 61.
9  The Russian term is posadnik.
Skazanie o Drakule voevode 363

18. Dracula’s end came about as follows. While he reigned in the country of

Muntenia, the Turks attacked his land and began to conquer it. Dracula attacked them
and put them to flight. His army killed them without mercy, and in joy Dracula mounted
a hill in order to better see how his people were massacring the Turks. He distanced
himself in this way from his army and his comrades mistook him for a Turk, and one of
them struck him with a sword. However, seeing himself attacked by his own, [Dracula]
immediately slew with his sword five of them who wished to fight him. However he
was pierced through by many lances, and thus he was killed.
19. The king brought his sister with the two sons to Buda, in Hungary. One of these
sons still lives in the retinue of the king’s son, while the other, who was with the bishop
of Oradea, died in our presence. The third and eldest son, named Michael,10 I have
seen here in Buda. He had fled from the Turkish emperor to the king. Dracula had him
from a young women when he was not yet married. Stephen of Moldavia, following
the king’s wish, installed a son of the voievod named Vlad11 in the land of Muntenia. In
his youth this same Vlad was a monk, then a priest, and later abbot of the monastery.
Then he was defrocked, and became prince and was married. He married the widow
of a prince who had reigned shortly after Dracula,12 and who had killed Stephen the
Wallachian.13 Having thus taken the wife of this voievod, Vlad reigned over the country
of Muntenia, he who had been a monk and abbot.
[In] the year 6994 [1486], on February 13th, I [completed] the writing of this for the
first time. Then, in the year 6998 [1490], on January 28th, I [completed] the second
copy—I, the sinner Efrosin.

10  In fact, his name was Mihnea.

11  Vlad the Monk (1482–1495).
12  Basarab IV the Young, nicknamed Ţepuluș (“Little Impaler”) (1477–1482).
13  Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia (1457–1504).
Die Geschicht Dracole Waide (Anonymous, 1488)
The History of Voievod Dracula

In the year 1461 after the birth of Christ, Dracula1 did many frightful and strange things.

1. Item: The old governor had the old Dracul2 killed. And Dracula and his brother3
abjured their faith, and promised and swore to defend the Christian faith.4
2. Item: The same year, he was put [on the throne] and became lord of Wallachia.5
He immediately had Ladislaus6 killed, who himself had been lord [of Wallachia].
3. Item: Soon after, in Siebenbürgen7 and also in Burzenland,8 he had [a town]
called Beckendorf9 burned. Both women and men, young and old, [were killed].
Some he brought with him to Wallachia, in iron chains, and there all were
impaled.
4. Item: He had all young boys, who had been sent to his country to learn the lan-
guage, locked in a room and burned. There were four hundred.
5. Item: He concluded a truce agreement, and [during that truce] he had many
merchants and wagoners from Burzenland impaled.

[Editor’s note]: This translation is based on Cazacu’s edition and French translation (L’histoire
du prince Dracula, pp. 158–167), which in turn is based on the pamphlet published by Marcus
Ayrer in Nuremberg, on October 14, 1488. The only known exemplar is located in the Herzogin
Anna Amalia Bibliothek, in Weimar. This incunabulum is currently accessible online in an
excellent digitized format (http://haab-digital.klassik-stiftung.de/viewer/resolver?identifier
=2113&field=MD_DIGIMOID [accessed August 1, 2017]).
1  Throughout the pamphlet, Dracula is referred to as “Dracole” (title etc.), “Dracol” (episode 1
etc.), “Trakole” (episode 9), and “Tracol” (episode 29). The most frequent form is “Dracole.”
2  In the German, “Dracol,” i.e., Vlad II Dracul, who died in 1447.
3  I.e., Dracula and Radu the Handsome.
4  Although the faith which Dracula and Radu purportedly renounced is not specified, the plau-
sible implication is Islam.
5  In the German, “Walachey.”
6  I.e., voievod Vladislav II, 1448–1456. In the German, “Lassla Wayda.” “Ladislaus” is the Latin
form of his name. The Hungarian is László.
7  In the German, “Siebenbuergen,” with “Siebenpuergen” (episode 19) as a variant spelling. In
the fifteenth century, Siebenbürgen designated the region of Sibiu.
8  In the German, “Wurtzland,” which in Romanian is “Ţara Bârsei,” a region of southeastern
Transylvania.
9  In the German, “Beckendorff.” The toponym in Romanian is possibly Bod, in Brașov County.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_017

Die Geschicht Dracole Waide 365

6. Item: He had a great [boyar] clan exterminated and impaled, from the smallest
to the largest, young and old.
7. Item: He had [some of] his people buried naked up to the navel and [then] shot
at. He also had a number [of others] roasted and flayed.
8. Item: He captured young Dan10 and had a grave made for him, and had a [funeral
service] sung following the Christian order, and had him beheaded next to the
grave.
9. Item: Fifty-five ambassadors were sent by the kingdom of Hungary and the Saxons
in Siebenbürgen to Wallachia. Dracula let these lords wait for five weeks, and had
stakes erected before their lodgings, and thus they were deeply concerned. He
did this [because] he feared [their] betrayal. He went forth to Burzenland and
destroyed the grain, and had all the crops burned, and he had people captured
and brought outside the [city] called Kronstadt,11 and there Dracula rested near
the chapel of Saint James. He had the suburbs burned. And as the day came, in
early morning, he had women and men, young and old, impaled near the chapel
and around the hill, and he sat amidst [them], and ate his morning meal with joy.
10. Item: He had the church of St. Bartholomew burned, and he made off with all the
liturgical vestments and chalices.
11. He sent one of his captains to burn a large village named Seiding.12 But this cap-
tain was not able to burn it on account of resistance from the villagers, and then
he came back to Dracula and said: “I wasn’t able to carry out what you ordered
me [to do].” He immediately had the captain impaled.
12. Item: Merchants and others with merchandise came from Burzenland to the
Danube, near Brăila,13 numbering four hundred, all of whom Dracula had im-
paled and whose possessions he had taken [from them].
13. Item: He had a great cauldron made, and over it [were placed] boards with holes,
and he had people’s heads shoved through there, and thus he had them impris-
oned. And he had the cauldron filled with water, and a great fire made under it.
And thus he had the people scream miserably until they were boiled to death.
14. He invented horrifying, dreadful, and unspeakable torments. He had mothers
impaled with their suckling babies, so that the babies thrashed about on their
[mothers’] breasts until they died. He likewise cut away mothers’ breasts, and
stuffed their children headfirst [into the gaping wounds], and then impaled
[them].

10  In the German, “Dann.” Refers to the pretender Dan, defeated and executed in 1460.
11  In the German, “Cronstat.” The toponym in Romanian is Brașov, center of Brașov County.
12  In the German, “Zeinding.” The toponym in Romanian is Codlea, which is nearby Brașov.
13  In the German, “gegen der Tunaw gen Pregel.” Brăila was the key Wallachian port city on
the lower Danube.
366 Die Geschicht Dracole Waide

15. Item: He had all sorts of people impaled side by side—Christians, Jews, and hea-
then—so that they moved and thrashed about and whimpered amongst one an-
other a long time, like frogs. Afterwards he had their hands and feet also impaled.
And often he spoke in his language, “Oh, with what great skill they move,” and
thus [in so doing] he took pleasure.
16. Item: He had captured a Gypsy14 who had stolen. Then the other Gypsies came
and asked Dracula to give him to them. Then he said: “He must hang, and you
must hang him yourselves.” They said it was not their custom. So Dracula had the
Gypsy boiled in a cauldron, and then the other Gypsies had to eat him, flesh and
bones.
17. Item: There was also a nobleman who was sent to him, who came to him among
the people he had impaled. Dracula went amongst [the impaled] and looked
upon them, and they were like a large forest. Then the man who had been sent
asked Dracula why he went around under the stench. Then Dracula [asked] if it
stank [to the nobleman]. He said: “Yes.” Then he immediately had him impaled
high up so that the others would not stink [to him].
18. Item: A priest had preached that sins would not be forgiven unless one render
justice for an injustice. Then [Dracula] invited him to his house, and set him at
[his] table. Then Dracula broke [some pieces of] white bread that he wanted to
eat himself. After a while the priest took one of the pieces and ate it. Dracula
said: “How did you preach today … That sin would not be forgiven unless one
render injustice with justice[?]” The priest said: “Yes.” Dracula said: “Why are
you eating my bread, that I broke for myself?” He immediately had the priest
impaled.
19. Item: Furthermore Dracula came to Tălmaciu15 in Siebenbügen and had [some
of] the people chopped up like cabbage, [and] the others he led home and
impaled.
20. Item: He invited all his territorial lords and noblemen in his land to his house.
When the meal was finished, he then turned to the oldest and asked how many
voievods [who had] ruled in the land could he remember. He also asked [the
same question, to] one after the other. They all said as many as each knew. One
said fifty, one thirty. So that there were none among them who spoke of seven.
Then he had them all impaled. There were five hundred in number.
21. Item: He had people ground to death on a grindstone, and he did many more
inhumane things, which people tell of him.

14  In the German, “zigewner,” and variantly “Zigeuener” (episode 16, 26).
15  In the German, “Kalmotz.” Tălmaciu is a town in Sibiu County, not far from Sibiu. Variant
German forms of the toponym include Talmesch, Thulmacz, Tholmasch, and Talmucz.
Die Geschicht Dracole Waide 367

22. Item: He had a mistress who claimed she was pregnant. Then he had her exam-
ined by the midwives, who said she was not pregnant. Then he cut this same
mistress open from below up to her breasts. And he said he wanted to see where
his fruit was, or where he had been.
23. Ambassadors were sent from Hermannstadt16 into Wallachia, and back home
they spoke of such misery, that they had seen dead and impaled people like a
great forest.
24. In the year of our Lord 1462, Dracula came to the large [city of] Nicopolis.17
There Dracula had killed more than twenty-five thousand people of all sorts—
Christians, Jews, also heathen. Among these were the most beautiful women
and girls, whom his court servants kept [for themselves]. And they requested
of Dracula to give them [these women] to be their lawful wives. Then Dracula
had the men, along with the women and girls, chopped up like cabbage with
sabers and swords. This he did because [his] country was tributary to the Turks,18
and the Turk had often demanded tribute from him. Thus he told the [Turkish]
envoys that he wanted to bring it himself. He rode into the country; then peo-
ple [i.e., Turks] rode toward him because of the tribute, intending to bring it to
the emperor. So one group came, [and was followed] by the other. Then when
Dracula saw it was time, he struck all those dead who had ridden toward him,
because they had not been expecting it. And Dracula burned all of Bulgaria.19
And he had impaled all the people that he could come across. They numbered
twenty-five thousand, besides those who perished by fire.
25. He saw a man working, [wearing] a short shirt. Then he asked him if he had a
wife. He said, “Yes.” Dracula ordered her brought before him, and asked her what
she did. She said: “I wash, bake, and spin.” He immediately had her impaled be-
cause she hadn’t made her husband a long shirt long, and he gave him another
wife, and told her to make [her husband] a long shirt, or he would have her im-
paled as well.
26. Item: Around three hundred Gypsies came into his country. Then he took the
three best of them and had them roasted, and [these] the other Gypsies had to
eat. And he said to them, “You all must eat of one another so, or else go against
the Turks.” The Gypsies were happy to fight the Turks. Therefore Dracula had

16  In the German, “Hermanstat.” The toponym in Romanian is Sibiu.

17  In the German, “die grossen Schiltaw.” Also known as Schiltau, and both a confusion with
Schistau (Șistov).
18  In the German, “den Duercken,” the singular being “der Duerck.” Variant spelling
“Tuercken” (episode 26).
19  In the German, “Wulgarey.”
368 Die Geschicht Dracole Waide

horses and men clothed in cowhides. Now when the Gypsies came to the Turks,
the Turks’ horses were frightened by the swishing of the cowhide20 and fled to a
[body of] water. Very many Turks drowned there then. Thus the Gypsies did their
duty.
27. [Dracula] encountered en route a monk of a barefoot order riding on a donkey.
Then Dracula had the donkey and the monk impaled, one on top of the other.
28. Item: Some Italians21 were sent to him. When they came to him they bowed and
took off their hats, and they kept on the berets beneath them. Then he asked
them why they did not also take off their little caps. They said it was their cus-
tom, and they did not even take them off for the Emperor. Dracula said: “I wish
to strengthen this [custom] for you.” He immediately had their caps nailed firmly
on their heads so that their caps would not fall off and their custom would re-
main. Thus he strengthened it.
29. Item: There were two monks who came into his country, [and] he invited them to
come to him, which happened. Then he took the one monk and asked him what
good people said of him. This monk was very frightened and said: “People say
everything good about you and that you are a very pious lord, [and] this I also say
of you.” He ordered that this monk be held. And the other monk was brought to
him, who was questioned by him like the first. Then the second monk thought:
“I must die, [so] I will tell him the truth,” and he said: “You are the greatest tyrant
one could find in the world, and I’ve met nobody who ever says good of you, and
this you have well proven.” Then Dracula said: “You have told me the truth, there-
fore I will let you live,” and he let him alone. And he sent again for the first monk,
and asked him if he would also speak the truth. Then he spoke as before. And
Dracula said: “Take him away and have him impaled because of [his] dishonesty.”
30. Item: He had children roasted, and these their mothers had to eat. And he cut the
breasts off women, and these their husbands had to eat. Then he had them all
impaled.
31. Item: He had a good meal prepared for all the beggars in his land. After the meal,
he had them locked up in the barn in which they had eaten, and burned them all.
He felt they were eating the people’s food for free and could not repay it.

20  In the German, “… da scheuchten der Duercken ross vor dem rauschen der kueheuet …”
On the sense of “rauschen” for “swishing,” see Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch,
vol. 2 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1876), cols. 555–556, s.v. rûschen, riuschen. And cf. supra,
p. 315, note 28, for a possible additional cause for the Turkish horses’ panic.
21  In the German, “Walhen.”
Die Geschicht Dracole Waide 369

32. Soon after this the king of Hungary captured him and kept him captive for a long
time under harsh [conditions]. Afterwards he let himself be baptized publicly
and did great penance. After this the king made Voievod Dracula a ruler again as
before. And people say he thereafter did many good things.

Completed on the Feast of Saint Calixtus [October 14] by Marc Ayrer, in the year 1488.

Additions in Later Editions of the GDW

Printings in Nuremberg (1499) and Strasbourg (1500) include the following episode:
Item: There was a fair in his country, and at night the merchants had to leave their
booths open, just as during the day when they were selling their merchandise. And at
night Dracula went into all the booths, and took money from one [booth] to put in an-
other, and he made note of how much he took or added to each. The next day, Dracula
returned to the booths and asked each [merchant] what he had lost, and he paid him.
And he who found [he had additional money], and said nothing, Dracula had impaled.
And it happened once that merchants came to a fair in his country, and they all
complained they could not make any money. When Dracula heard this, he bought
all their merchandise and gave them a goodly sum of money. Then the merchants re-
turned a short time afterwards and brought other merchandise, but the fair was over.
When Dracula saw this, he had them summoned and said to them: “You are all rascals
and liars. You complain that you don’t make any money, and as soon as you’ve sold
something, you bring back something else [to sell].” And he had them all impaled.

Printings in Augsburg (1499), Nuremberg (1499) and Strasbourg (1500) include the follow-
ing episode:
Item: He had his great treasure cleverly buried in a river, and [then] had all the
workmen killed, to the last man. And he had a boy [in his circle], whom he asked if
he knew where his treasure was kept. The boy answered “No,” but he knew very well
[where it was]. So Dracula killed him as well, so that nobody could find his treasure.
Glossary of Terms

Arab. = Arabic; Fr. = French; Gk. = Greek; Hung. = Hungarian; Lat. = Latin; O. Slav. =
Old Slavic; Rom. = Romanian; Russ. = Russian; Serb. = Serbian; Slav. = Slavic; Turk. =
Turkish.

akc̦e (Turk.) Ottoman silver coin and chief monetary unit of the
Ottoman Empire.
akıncı (s.), akıncılar (pl.) sometimes Anglicized as akinji, or adindji: irregular
(Turk.) Ottoman light cavalry frontier troops, which subsisted
on raiding and looting.
azap, or azab (Turk., Ottoman infantrymen, conscripted from craftsmen
from Arab., “umarried, and peasants, serving on battlefields and in fortresses.
bachelor”)
ban, of Oltenia high-ranking boyar governor, responsible for adminis-
tering voievodal and judicial matters in Oltenia. The
term “ban” is ultimately of Turk. origin.
ban (s.), bani (pl.) (Rom.) Wallachian silver coin, usually worth a half or two
thirds of the other Wallachian denomination, the
ducat.
beylerbeyi, or beylerbey Ottoman provincial governor and commander-in-
(Turk., “lord of lords”) chief, of which there were two, one for Anatolia and
the other for Rumili (Rumelia).
bir (Rom.) tax levied in Wallachia to pay tribute to the Ottomans.
börk (Turk.) red caftan, often given as a ceremonial gift by Ottoman
sultans to vassal princes.
buzdugan, or topuz (Rom., scepter, one of the items of Wallachian princely insig-
from Turk.) nia bestowed in the coronation ceremony.
comis (Rom.) constable, i.e., the Wallachian court official responsi-
ble for the voievod’s horses, and transporting tribute to
the Ottomans.
curte (Rom., from Lat. curtis) princely or voievodal residence, the Slavic equivalent
being dvor.
curtean (s.), curteni (pl.) landowning freemen who formed part of the Walla-
(Rom.) chian principality’s army.
c̦akırcıbașı (Turk.) Ottoman office of chief falconer, or steward of the
falconers.
Dăneștii (Rom.) branch of the House of Basarab descending from
Dan I (1383–1385).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004349216_018

Glossary Of Terms 371

devșirme (Turk. “collection”), Ottoman forced levy of boys and young men as a tax,
sometimes Anglicized as from Christian subjects in Europe and Anatolia.
devshirme
dhimmi (Turk., from Arab.), protected non-Muslims (Jewish, Christian) within a
in Ottoman Turkish Muslim state, e.g., The Ottoman Empire.
spelled zimmi
divan (Turk., from Arab. Ottoman imperial council.
diwān)
drac (Rom.) (Lat. draco) devil.
Drăculeștii (Rom.) branch of the House of Basarab descending from
Vlad II Dracul (1436–1442, 1444–1447).
dvor (Slav.) princely or voievodal residence, the Romanian equiva-
lent being curte.
d’jaki (Russ.) Muscovite princely secretaries.
gerid (Turk.) equestrian game in which horsemen aimed a lance
at a ring at full gallop. In Romanian, known as halca.
ghazi (Arab.) Muslim fighter, engaged in warfare (expedition, raid-
ing) in the name of Islam.
gospodar”, or gospodin” title frequently used by Wallachian voievods, meaning
(O. Slav.) “lord,” equivalent to Lat. dominus, Rom. domn.
gosudar’ (Russ.) title used by Grand Princes of Moscow from the 1470s,
meaning “sovereign prince,” subordinate to none.
groază” (Russ.) reverential fear.
gümrük (Turk., from a tax of 2% of merchandise value, excised either on
Gk. kommerkion, L. entering or exiting the Ottoman Empire.
commercium)
halca (Rom.) see gerid.
harac̦ (Turk., from Arab.), in the Ottoman Empire, can refer to the capitation or
sometimes Anglicized poll tax paid by non-Muslims, also known as cizye.
as kharadj Likewise can designate tribute rendered by vassal
princes to the sultan.
harţa (Rom.) jousting, equivalent of French “harcèlement.”
hilat (Turk., from Arab.) robe, or robe of honor, often given as a ceremonial gift
by Ottoman sultans to vassal princes.
ismeju (Serb., in Rom. zmeu) dragon.
judeţ (Rom.) term for county, and also county capital, in Wallachia.
jupan (s.), jupanii (pl.) great lord.
(Rom., etymology
contested), sometimes
Anglicized as zhupan
372
kazıklı (Turk.)
knez (Rom. cneaz, from
O. Slav.)
logofăt (Rom., from Gk.
logothetes)
mămăliga (Rom.)
manocque (Fr.)
mare-voievod (Rom.)
martolos (Turk., from Gk.
armatolos, “militia man”)
mora (Slav.), moroi (Rom.)
moșneni (Rom.)
mucitel’ (Russ.)
naib (Turk., from Arab.)
nefârtatu (Rom.)
Negru Vodă (Rom.)
nosferatu (Rom. nefârtatu?)
oastea cea mare (Rom., “the
great army,” …)
oastea cea mică (Rom., “the
little army,” oastea being
derived from Lat. hostis)
opyr, opir (O. Slav.)
ordog (Hung. ördög)
Glossary of Terms
Turkish word for “The Impaler,” and epithet given to
Vlad Dracula in several Ottoman sources.
term for local lords in the Romanian lands, function-
ally equivalent to counts in western medieval Europe.
chancellor, i.e., the Wallachian court official responsi-
ble for drawing up voievodal letters and documents.
traditional Romanian dish, consisting of boiled corn-
meal. Akin to Italian polenta, polenta di meliga. Men-
tioned in Stoker’s Dracula as mamaliga.
Word which Jehan de Wavrin uses describing a small
boat or canoe carved from tree trunks used by the
Wallachians and Turks for transport on the Danube.
great or grand voievod of Wallachia, as distinct from an
associate ruler (e.g., son, brother), who normally held
the title voievod of Oltenia.
originally remnants of the Byzantine militia continu-
ing under the Ottomans with various functions, e.g.
salaried mobile troops attached to fortresses, marines
on the Danube, or unpaid police.
vampire.
free peasants, literally “inheritors, proprietors by
heritage.”
tyrant, but also executioner.
deputy or inferior judge in the Ottoman Empire.
false brother, devil; possibly what Emily Gerard meant
by nosferatu.
“The Black Prince,” and legendary founder of Walla-
chia according to the Chronicle of the Cantacuzenus
Family.
term for vampire first recorded by Wilhelm Schmidt
(1866) and Emily de Laszowska-Gerard (1885, 1888).
levy of all resident males of arms-bearing age, number-
ing ca. 30,000–40,000.
cavalry division of the Wallachian army composed of
upper classes, numbering ca. 10,000.
vampire.
term for “Satan” appearing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Glossary Of Terms
paharnic
plai (Rom.)
pokol (Hung.)
pomest’e (Russ.)
pop (Rom.)
pricolici (Rom., also Gk.)
protovistier (Rom., from
Gk. protovestiarios)
samodr “žavnyi gospodin”
(Slav.), domn singur
stăpânitor (Rom.)
Solomantă, Solomonărie
(Rom.), rendered as
“Scholomance” in Stoker’s
Dracula
spadă (Rom., from Gk.
spathe)
spătar (Rom., from spatha)
staffirs, from Rom. stafii
(ghosts)
stolnic (from Slav. stol,
“table”)
strigoi (m. sing.), strigoii
(m. pl.) strigoaică (f. sing), stregoica, and is defined as a witch.
strigoaice (f. pl.) (Rom.),
derived from Lat. strix,
striga
subașı (Turk.)
Ţara Bârsei (Rom., in
German Burzenland)
Ţara de sus, Ţara de jos (Rom.) geographic divisions within Moldavia, respectively
373
cupbearer, i.e., the Wallachian court official responsi-
ble for provisioning wine for the voievod and his
retinue.
mountain areas and high plateaus.
term for “hell” appearing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
fiefs allocated by Muscovite Grand Princes.
priest.
werewolf.
first or grand treasurer, i.e., the Wallachian court offi-
cial overseeing funds received into and spent from the
voevodal treasury.
title sometimes adopted by the Wallachian princes,
and a translation of the Greek autokrator.
mythical school of sorcery in the mountains near Her-
mannstadt/Sibiu, operated by the devil.
sword, one of the items of Wallachian princely insignia
bestowed in the coronation ceremony.
title of the chief of the Wallachian army.
term used by the traveler Stanislas Bellanger in 1846 for
revenants appearing as white women, inhabiting iso-
lated places.
seneschal, i.e. the Wallachian court official responsible
for provisioning the court with food, and tasting the
voievod’s food for security.
vampire. Appears in Stoker’s Dracula with spelling
As encountered by Dracula, a commander of an Otto-
man town or castle, who functioned as a security offi-
cer or chief of police.
environs of Brașov.
the upper part in the north, and the lower part in the
south.
374 Glossary of Terms

Ţara Oltului (Rom.) duchy of Făgăraș, also known as the Olt Country
Ţara Românească (Rom.) Wallachia
târg (Rom.) town, marketplace, fair.
topuz see buzgudan.
Ungrovlahia (Rom., from usually Anglicized as Ungro-Wallachia: Wallachia.
Gk. Ouggrovlachia)
üsküf (Turk.) golden [fur] cap, often given as a ceremonial gift by
Ottoman sultans to vassal princes.
vârcolac see vurkolak.
viteaz (Rom.) knight
vlasteli (Rom., from Slav. members of the high nobility.
“powerful,” “parents of a
prince”)
voievod, abbreviated as vodă, As held by rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia, the title is
usually Anglicized as generally translated as “prince,” even though the Latin
voivode or voivod, though equivalent was dux [duke]. The full form of the title
the form “voievod” reflects often appears as voievod și domn, the Latin equivalent
the oldest spelling, which being dux et dominus. The voievod of Transylvania, in
is used throughout the Dracula’s times, was an appointee of the Hungarian
book. king and functioned more as a viceroy or military
governor.
vornik (Rom., from Slav. dvor) administrator of the princely court with judicial
authority throughout the entire country. Latin equiva-
lents are judex et palatinus curiae nostra (palatine
judge), provisor, and judex curiae.
vurkolak (Slav.), vârcolac werewolf. Appears in Stoker’s Dracula in the forms
(Rom.) vrolok and vlkoslak.
Illustrations

Figure 1 Dracula’s father Vlad II Dracul (left) with his wife (right). From a fresco in the house
in Sighişoara where Vlad and his family lived.
photo: Eugen Iancu Marculescu, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Figure 2 The house in Sighişoara where Vlad II Dracul dwelt 1431–1436, and where Dracula
presumably was born.
photo: Marian Florinel Condruz, Dreamstime.com.
376 Illustrations

Figure 3 In 1431, Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg made Vlad II Dracul a member of his
“Order of the Dragon.” On this coin issued by Vlad, a dragon (left) is depicted on the
reverse, and an eagle looking back at a cross (right) on the obverse.
photo: © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Figure 4 Golden bull of Emperor Sigismund I, dated August 10, 1433.

Attached to a charter conferring jurisdictional independence
to the city of Ulm. Vlad II Dracul spent much of his youth as a
hostage at Sigismund’s court.
photo: Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg.
Illustrations 377

Figure 5 Anonymous painted portrait of Vlad Dracula, dating from second half
of sixteenth century. Probably copied from a lost direct portrait, made
sometime during Vlad’s captivity in Hungary (1462–1474). Formerly in
Schloss Ambras Collections; now in Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.
photo: KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, VIENNA.
378 Illustrations

Figure 6 Cryptoportrait of Vlad Dracula in an anonymous painting of the Martyrdom of

Saint Andrew, ca. 1470–1480. Vlad is in the upper left corner, representing Aegeas,
the Roman Proconsul of Patras who ordered Andrew to be bound on a decussate
(“X-Shaped”) cross. Perhaps stimulated by stories the painter had heard about
Dracula’s gruesome impalement of monks (cf. Beheim, Song Poem on Dracula,
Annex, ll. 791–801).
photo: Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.
Illustrations 379

Figure 7 One of four known manuscript versions of Die Geschichte Dracole Waide. Ca. 1500
but reflecting the earliest ca. 1463 form of the text. No depiction of Dracula. In Cod.
Sang. 806, Library of St. Gall Monastery, Switzerland.
photo: St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek.
 380

Figures 8–9 Woodcut portraits of Vlad Dracula, as frontispieces of the pamphlet Die Geschicht Dracole Waide. Left is
printing by Peter Wagner, Nuremberg, 1488, with original coloring. Four surviving examplars are known.
Right is printing by Bartholomaeus Ghothan, Lübeck, 1488–1493. Portrait is not colored. Only known
exemplar in Budapest.
photos: (left) THE ROSENBACH MUSEUM AND LIBRARY, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA;
Illustrations

(right) NATIONAL SZÉCHÉNYI LIBRARY, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY.

 Illustrations

Figure 10 First two text pages of Bartholomaeus Ghothan’s 1488–1493 pamphlet Die Geschicht Dracole Waide. Its opening four lines
announce: “About an evil tyrant called Dracole Wyda. After the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, [in the] year A. D. 1461, this
381

Dracole Wyda has done and threatened many frightful and strange things in Wallachia and also in Hungary”.
photo: National Széchényi Library, Budapest, Hungary.
 382

Figures 11–12 Left is a woodcut of Vlad Dracula dining amidst impaled victims, frontispiece of the pamphlet Die Geschicht
Dracole Waide printed by Mathias Hupfuff in Strasbourg in 1500. Dining scene is not colored. Four surviving
examplars known. Right is a modern colorized version of the Hupfuff woodcut, widely circulating in popular
media, aimed at further dramatizing the ghastliness of the scene.
Illustrations

photos: (left) GERMANISCHES NATIONALMUSEUM, NUREMBERG; (right) AKG-IMAGES.

 Illustrations

Figures 13–14 In June 1456 Halley’s Comet appeared over Europe and was visible for a month. Vlad Dracula viewed this as favorable,
and had it depicted on the reverse of a silver ban (right), adjacent the cross, sun, and moon. On the obverse (left) are
a coat of arms (?), with a crescent and star in the first field, and three horizontal bars in the second field.
photos: Cabinetul de numismatică al Bibliotecii Academiei Române.
383
384 Illustrations

Figure 15 Reconstruction of the palace which Vlad Dracula built at Târgovişte, opened during
the 1906 Bucharest Jubilee Exhibition.
photo: author’s collection.

Figure 16 Entry to remains of the Old Princely or “Voievodal” court, Bucharest. In Vlad
Dracula’s time it consisted of a brick fortress, which he enlarged and surrounded
with stone walls in 1458–1459.
photo: Joseph C. Ozga.
Illustrations 385

Figures 17–18 Castle Poienari built by Dracula in the southern Carpathian Mountains.
Peasants from seven adjacent villages received important fiscal privileges in
exchange for protecting and maintaining this “eagle’s nest,” situated on the
frontier with Transylvania.
photos: Xalanx, Dreamstime.com.
386 Illustrations

Figure 19 Portrait busts in relief of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary (right), and wife,
Beatrice of Naples (left), in the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest. Elected
king in 1458, Matthias was above all preoccupied with establishing his power vis-à-
vis the Holy Roman Emperor, and did not support Dracula in his struggle with the
Ottomans. Lombard school, ca. 1485–1490.
photo: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Figure 20
Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. Conqueror
of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed never
forgave Dracula for the humiliating
defeats he inflicted upon him. Attributed
to Nakkaş Sinan Bey, in the Topkapı
Sarayı Library, Istanbul.
photo: akg-images, Maurice
Babey.
Illustrations 387

Figure 21
Votive portrait of Basarab III Laiotă the Old,
Dracula’s assassin, in Hurezi Monastery, late
17th century. Ca. Christmas 1476, his troops
“cut Dracula into pieces,” and killed four
thousand of his supporters.
photo: Alex, Wikimedia Commons,
Public Domain.

Figure 22 Snagov Monastery, where Vlad Dracula most likely was buried, and where Dinu V.
Rosetti and George D. Florescu excavated in 1933, discovering what appears to have
been Dracula’s tomb.
photo: Diana Coman, Dreamstime.com.
388 Illustrations

Figure 23 Manuscript painting of Dracula’s great-grandson Alexander II

Mircea, son of Mircea III Dracul. A month after his succession
in 1568, he decapitated more than two hundred boyars. From a
gospel book in Suceviţa Monastery (MS 23, fol. 303 vo).
photo: Mănăstirea Suceviţa.

Figure 24 Manuscript painting of Alexander II’s son Mihnea II the Turk,

who succeeded in 1577, was twice overthrown, and converted to
Islam, becoming Governor of Nicopolis on the Danube. From the
same Suceviţa Monastery gospel book (MS 23, fol. 238 vo).
photo: Mănăstirea Suceviţa.

Figure 26 Stoker’s typewritten notes, with handwritten
Figure 25 Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, with
Stoker’s autograph. Dated 1906, the year
of the Bucharest Jubilee Exhibition.
photo: National Portrait
Gallery London.
Illustrations
pen annotations, from William Wilkinson’s
Account of the Principalities of Wallachia
and Moldavia (1820). Stoker derived his
information about the historical Vlad III
Dracula from Wilkinson, after discovering his
book in the Whitby Subscription Library in
August 1890.
389
photo: © Noel Dobbs & Robin McCaw
2017. Published courtesy of the Bram
Stoker Estates Collection.
390 Illustrations

Figure 27 Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens [Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror],

directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1922). The quite unsettling Count Orlok
(derived from vârcolac) is played by Max Schreck. Murnau admitted his film was
“freely adapted from Dracula by Bram Stoker,” but it was unauthorized by Stoker’s
widow and literary agent, Florence Balcombe Stoker, who successfully sued for
copyright infringement. Depicted here is the vampire’s destruction by sunlight, not
a stake through the heart, in the film’s closing scene. The earliest surviving Dracula
film, Nosferatu is still critically acclaimed as a masterpiece.
photo: akg-images.
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Individual Primary Authors & Texts

Angiolello, Giovanni Maria, Historia turchesca (Turkish History) (late 15th Century-
before 1524), see Da Lezze, Donado
Anonymous, Ekthesis Chronikē (ca. 1517) & Chronicon Athenarum (1606)
[Edition of the Greek by Lambros]: Ecthesis Chronica and Chronicon Athenarum.
Edited by Spyridon P. Lambros. London: Methuen & Co., 1902.
Anonymous, Historia Patriarchica Constantinopoleos (ca. 1578)
[Edition of the Greek by Crusius]: Historia Patriarchica, seu Ecclesiastica post
Constantinopolin a Turcis expugnatam ad nostra usque tempora: Patriarcha I.
Book II of Turcograeciae Libri Octo: Quibus Graecorum Status Sub Imperio Turcico,
in Politia et Ecclesia, Oeconomia et Scholis, iam inde ab amissa Constantinopoli, ad
haec usque tempora, luculenter describitur. Edited by Martin Crusius. Basel: Per
Leonardum Ostenium, Sebastiani Henricpetri Impensa, 1584.
[Edition of the Greek by Bekker]: Historia politica et patriarchica Constantinopoleos.
Epirotica. Edited by Immanuel Bekker. Pp. 78–204. Corpus scriptorium historiae
byzantinae, vol. 28. Bonn: Impensis Ed. Weberi, 1848.
Anonymous, Letopiseţul Cantacuzinesc (Chronicle of the Cantacuzenus Family) (late
15th Century)
[Edition of the Romanian by Grecescu and Simonescu]: Istoria Ţării Romînești 1290–
1690: Letopiseţul Cantacuzinesc [The history of Wallachia 1290–1690: chronicle of
the Cantacuzenus (family)]. Edited by Constantin Grecescu and Dan Simonescu.
Cronicile medievale ale Romîniei, vol. 3. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii
Populare Romîne, 1960
Anonymous, Geschichte Dracole Waide (The History of Voievod Dracula) (1463)
[Edition of the German and facing French translation by Cazacu]: In Cazacu,
L’histoire du Prince Dracula, 92–103.
[English translation of Cazacu’s ed.]: supra Appendix, pp. 310–316.
[English translation by Florescu and McNally]: In Florescu and McNally, In Search
of Dracula (1994), 193–207.
Anonymous, Die Geschicht Dracole Waide (The History of Voievod Dracula) (1488)
[Edition of the German and facing French translation by Cazacu]: In Cazacu,
L’histoire du Prince Dracula, 154–167.
[English translation of Cazacu’s ed.]: supra Appendix, pp. 364–369.
[English translation of Peter Wagner’s printing by Eddy]: Dracula: A Translation of
the 1488 Nürnberg Edition with an Essay. Introduction and translation by Beverly
D. Eddy. Philadelphia: The Rosenbach Museum & Library, 1985.
Anonymous, Mioriţa
[Excerpts in the Romanian]: In Brăiloiu, Constantin. Sur une ballade roumaine
(La Mioritza). Geneva: Kundig, 1946.
Bibliography 397

Anonymous [but very likely Fyodor Kuritsyn], Skazanie o Drakule voevode (The Tale
of Voievod Dracula) (1486)
[Edition of the Russian and facing French translation by Cazacu]: In Cazacu,
L’histoire du Prince Dracula, 169–211.
[English translation of Cazacu’s ed.]: supra Appendix, pp. 357–363.
[English translation by McNally]: In McNally and Florescu, In Search of Dracula
(1994), 198–207. [Editor’s note: We cite McNally’s version, and include it in source
citations, simply for bibliographic completeness and because the book in which
it appears is still widely available and assigned for undergraduate reading in
American universities. But it is problematic. McNally makes the preposterous
claim that his “is the first translation of this document into a Western language,”
and insinuates that he did so directly from “the oldest Russian manuscript”
(p. 198). In point of fact, Matei Cazacu had published his edition of the Skazanie
with French translation in 1988, in the first edition of his L’histoire du prince
Dracula, using all the key Slavic manuscripts. Comparing McNally’s English
translation with the latter, it is obvious that McNally relied heavily on Cazacu’s
French translation. The McNally English translation was rendered into French in
the 1973 translation of In Search of Dracula (i.e., A la recherche de Dracula [Paris:
R. Laffont]), and Cazacu listed its various innacuracies in his 1996 updating of
L’histoire du Prince Dracula, 169–170].
Anonymous [but attributed to Vladimir Gusev], Sudebnik (Law Code) (1497)
[Edition of the Russian by Čerepnin]: In Russkie feodal’nye arxivy XIV–XV vekov.
Edited by Lev V. Čerepnin. Vol. 2, 310–314. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Akademii nauk
SSSR, 1951.
[English translation by Dewey]: In Muscovite Judicial Texts, 1488–1556. Compiled,
translated, and edited, with annotation and selected glossary, by H. W. Dewey.
Michigan Slavic materials no. 7. Pp. 7–21. Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic
Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1966.
Anonymous, Tevārih-i āl-i Osmān (Histories of the House of Osman) (late 15th
Century)
[Edition of excerpts of the Ottoman with facing German translation by Georghe
and Weber]: Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, 141–149. Pp. 141–147 for critical orienta-
tion; pp. 148–149 for text and translation. Transcription and translation based on
Giese’s edition and translation.
[Edition of the Ottoman by Giese]: Die altosmanischen anonymen Chroniken
(Tawārīḫ-i āl-ʻUs̲mān) in Text und Übersetzung herausgegeben. Vol. 1, Text und
Variantenverzeichnis. Edited by Friedrich Giese. Breslau: Im Selbstverlage
Breslau XVI, 1922.
[German translation by Giese]: Die altosmanischen anonymen Chroniken (Tawārīḫ-i
āl-ʻUs̲mān) in Text und Übersetzung herausgegeben. Vol. 2, Übersetzung.
398 Bibliography

Translated by Friedrich Giese. Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft,

Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. 17. Leipzig: In Kommsion
bei F. A. Brockhaus, 1925.
[Romanian translation of excerpts of the Ottoman by Guboglu and Mehmet]: In
Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 177–187. Pp. 177–179 for introduction;
pp. 180–187 for translation.
Anonymous, Venetian Chronicler, Excerpt “La progenia della cassa de l’Octomani”
(Scions of the House of the Ottomans) (ca. 1458)
[Edition of the Italian by Iorga]: In Iorga, Acte și fragmente, vol. 3, 12–15.
Aristotle [Pseudo], Tajnaja tajnyx [Secretum Secretorum] (Secret of Secrets) (late
15th Century)
[English translation by Ryan]: Ryan, W. F. “Alchemy, Magic, Poisons, and the Virtues
of Stones in Old Russian Secretum Secretorum.” Ambix 37, pt. 1 (1990): 46–54, with
translation on pp. 49–50.
[English translation of selected passages by Zguta]: Zguta, Russell. “The ‘Aristotelevy
vrata’ as a Reflection of Judaizer Political Ideology.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte
Osteuropas, Neue Folge, vol. 26, no. 1 (1978): 1–10.
Āșıkpașazāde, Tevārīh-i āl-i ‘Osmān (Histories of the House of Osman) (before 1484)
[Edition of excerpts of the Ottoman with facing German translation by Georghe and
Weber]: Corpus Draculianum, vol. 3, 103–114. Pp. 103–107 for critical orientation;
pp. 108/112 [Ottoman], 109/114 [German] for text and translation. Transcription
based on Giese’s edition, and translation on Kreutel.
[Edition of the Ottoman by Giese]: Die altosmanische Chronik des Āšikpašazāde,
auf Grund mehrerer neuentdeckter Handschriften von neuem herausgegeben.
Edited by Friedrich Giese. Leipzig: O. Harrassowitz, 1929. Reprinted Osnabrück:
O. Zeller, 1972.
[German translation by Kreutel]: Vom Hirtenzelt zur Hohen Pforte: Frühzeit und
Aufstieg des Osmanenreiches nach der Chronik “Denkwürdigkeiten und Zeitläufte
des Hauses ‘Osman” vom Derwisch Ahmed, genannt ‘Așık-Pașa-Sohn. Translated
with notes by Richard Kreutel. Osmanische Geschichtsschreiber, vol. 3. Graz:
Verlag Styria, 1959.
[Romanian translation of excerpts of the Ottoman by Guboglu and Mehmet]: In
Guboglu and Mehmet, eds., Cronici turcești, 80–105. Pp. 80–82 for introduction;
pp. 83–105 for translation.
Balbi, Domenico, Letter to the Venetian Senate (late July 1462)
[Edition of the Italian by Nagy and Nyáry]: In MHH AE, vol. 4 [A], 167–168.
Bartholomaeus of Alverna, Errores schismaticorum Orientalium (ca. 1390)
[Edition of the Latin by Lasić]: Lasić, Dionysius. “Fr. Bartholomaei de Alverna, Vicarii
Bosniae 1367–1407, quaedam scripta hucusque inedita.” Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum 55 (1962): 59–81. Pp. 66–68 for “Errores schismaticorum Orientalium.”
Bibliography 399

Bartholomaeus de Giano, Letter (February 1443)

[Edition of the French by Iorga]: Iorga, Nicolae. “Les Aventures ‘sarrazines’ des
Franc̦ais de Bourgogne au XVe siècle.” In Mélanges d’histoire générale, edited by
Constantin Marinescu. Pp. 31–38 for “Document II. 3 février 1443.—Lettre du
Franciscain Barthélemy de Gênes concernant les combats entre Turcs et chré-
tiens sur le Danube.” Université de Cluj, Publications de l’Institut d’Histoire
Générale, vol. 1. Cluj: Cartea Românească, 1927.
Beheim, Michael [or Michel]
a. Das Buch von den Wienern (Book of the Viennese) (1462–1466)
[Edition of the German by Von Karajan]: Michael Beheim’s Buch von den Wienern,
1462–1465, zum ersten Mahle nach der Heidelberger und Wiener Handscrift heraus-
gegeben. Edited by Theodor Georg Von Karajan. New edition. Vienna: Wilhelm
Braumüller, 1867.
b. Heidelberg Mss. of Poems No. 1–147
[Edition of the German by Gille and Spriewald]: Die Gedichte des Michel Beheim:
Nach der Heidelberger Hs. cpg 334 unter Heranziehung der Heidelberger Hs. cpg
312 und der Münchener Hs. cgm 291 sowie sämtlicher Teilhandschriften. Edited by
Hans Gille and Ingeborg Spriewald. Vol. 1, Einleitung, Gedichte Nr. 1–147. Deutsche
Texte des Mittelalters, edited by Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Berlin, vol. 60. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1968.
c. Song Poem on Dracula (1463, or later?)
[Edition of the German by Gille and Spiewald]: Die Gedichte des Michel Beheim, no.
99, “Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei,” 285–316.
[Edition of the German with facing French translation by Cazacu]: In Cazacu,
L’histoire du Prince Dracula, 106/152 [German], 107/153 [French].
[Edition of the German with parallel English translation by McDonald]: McDonald,
William C. “Michel Beheim’s Song-Poem on Dracula: Some Notes and a
Translation.” In In Memory of Ulrich Müller, edited by Sibylle Jefferis. Vol. 1,
Earthly and Spiritual Pleasures in Medieval Life, Literature, Art, and Music, 187–
229. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, vol. 779. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 2014.
Text and translation based on Gille and Spriewald’s edition.
d. Song Poem on King Vladislav (after 1444)
[Edition of the German by Gille and Spiewald]: Die Gedichte des Michel Beheim,
no. 104, “Hie dises geticht sagt von kung Pladislavo, dem kung von Ungern, wie
der mit den Turken strait,” 328–56.
[Edition of the German by Karadja]: Karadja, Constantin. “Poema lui Michel Beheim
despre cruciadele împotriva Turcilor din anii 1443 și 1444: Publicată după manu-
scrisele Pal. Germ. 334 și 312 din Biblioteca Universităţii de la Heidelberg [Michel
Beheim’s poem on crusades against the Turks in 1443 and 1444: publication of
University of Heidelberg Library manuscripts Pal. Germ 334 and 312].” Buletinul
Comisiei istorice a României 15 (1936): 18–48.
400 Bibliography

[English translation by Imber]: Imber, Crusade of Varna, 167–180 (“This Poem

Tells of King Pladislavo, King of Hungary, and How he Fought with the Turks”).
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Index of Personal Names
Anonymous Ottoman chronicler, author of
Tevārih-i āl-i Osmān 67
Acciaiuoli, Antonio I, duke of Athens and
Thebes 235
Adjani, Isabelle, French stage and film
actress 277
Agârbiceanu, Ion, Romanian writer 275
Ahmed, khan of the Golden Horde 221,
224–225
Alaric I, king of the Visigoths 215
Albert of Habsburg, king of Hungary and
Croatia, king of Bohemia, elected king of
Germany, duke of Luxembourg, archduke
of Austria xiii, 32, 34–35, 51
Albert VI of Habsburg, archduke of
Austria 134, 173
Alecsandri, Vasile, Moldavian poet and
playwright 299
Alexander I Aldea [Alexandru Aldea],
voievod of Wallachia 18, 21, 24, 25–27, 31
Alexander I the Good [Alexandru cel Bun],
voievod of Moldavia 17, 63, 70, 73
Alexander II [Alexandru (Alexăndrel)],
voievod of Moldavia 71, 74, 108
Alexander the Child [Alexandru Coconul],
hospodar and voievod of Wallachia 196
Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia 46,
234
Alexander Mircea [Alexandru Mircea],
great-grandson of Vlad III Dracula,
voievod of Wallachia 192–194, 388
Alexandra, Wallachian princess and sister of
Vlad Dracula 31, 59, 71
Allen, Woody, American actor and
filmmaker 275
Altenberger, Thomas, royal judge of
Sibiu 207
Alucard, Count, film character whose name is
a palindrome of “Dracula” 277
Andreesco, Ioanna, Romanian-born French
ethnologist xix, 299–300
Andreescu, Ştefan, Romanian
historian 173–174
Andrew III [András], king of Hungary and
Croatia 3
Angelescu, Gheorghe, Romanian general 
268
Angeloi [sing. Angelos], a Byzantine imperial
family 242
Angelović, Serbian branch of the Byzantine
family of Angelos
Mahmud Pasha [Paşa], Ottoman grand
vizier 110–112, 120, 138, 148–150, 164,
237–246, 349, 352–354
Michael, Serbian dignitary 110
Anjou, dynasty of Naples and Hungary
Charles Robert I [Károly, “Caroberto”],
king of Hungary and Croatia 4–5, 16
Louis I the Great [Nagy Lajos], king of
Hungary and Croatia, king of
Poland 5–6, 16, 70
Anne of Foix-Candale, queen of Hungary and
Bohemia 204
Antichrist, identified as Mehmed II, Ottoman
sultan 206
Arpad [Árpád] dynasty, first ruling house
of the Principality of Hungary, see
Andrew III [András]
Āşıkpaşazāde, Ottoman historian, author of
Tevārīh-i āl-i ʿOsmān 138
Augustus (Octavian), first Roman
emperor 204, 254
Aymo, Giovanni, Venetian ambassador to
Hungary 166
Ayrer, Marc or Marx, German printer 
200–201, 364, 369
Babinger, Franz, German Ottomanist 111,
155
Bacou, Mihaela, Romanian-born French
anthropologist 300
Baedeker, travel guides 260
Balarin de Raconis, Jean, French
orientalist 236
Balbi, Domenico, Venetian bailo at
Constantinople 234
Balcombe, Florence, wife of Bram Stoker 
254, 390
Balderston, John L., American playwright and
screenwriter 276
446
Bartholomaeus de Giano, Franciscan
friar 37, 67
Basarab I, voievod of Wallachia 3–5, 11
Basarab II, voievod of Wallachia 38–39, 41
Basarab III the Old [Basarab Laiotă cel
Bătrân], voievod of Wallachia 178–180,
387
Basarab IV the Young, or the Little Impaler
[Basarab cel Tânăr, Țepeluș], voievod of
Wallachia 208
Báthory, Stephen V [Báthory István],
Hungarian commander and voievod of
Transylvania 180
Bayezid I the Thunderbolt [Yıldırım],
Ottoman sultan 7, 12
Bayezid II, Ottoman sultan 52, 186, 189,
223–224
Beatrice of Aragon, or Naples [Aragóniai
Beatrix], wife of Matthias Corvinus and
queen of Hungary 179, 203, 386
Beheim, Michael [Michel], wandering
German singer, poet, writer xvii, xxii,
xxiv, 118, 122-123, 161–162, 170–172, 200,
208, 210–212, 214–215, 301, 317–346
Benedict de Boythor, Hungarian
diplomat 110, 113–114
Bernheim, Hippolyte, French physician and
neurologist 271
Bestužev, Matthew [Matvei], envoy for
Ivan III 224
Black Prince [Negru Vodă], founder of the
Wallachian dynasty 3, 4
Blaisdell, Elinore, American author and
illustrator 275
Blaise [Blasius], a citizen of Buda 126
Bloch, Marc, French historian 80
Bloch, Robert, American crime, horror and
science fiction writer 274
Bocignoli, Michael [Michael Bocignolus
Raguseus, Miho Bučinjelić], Ragusan
diplomat 216, 218
Bodin, Jean, French humanist xviii
Bogdan I, voievod of Moldavia 60–71
Bogdan II, voievod of Moldavia 71–72, 131
Bogdan III, see Bogdan, Vlad
Bogdan, Ion, Romanian Slavist and
historian 219, 248
Index of Personal Names
Bogdan, Vlad [Bogdan III], voievod of
Moldavia 157
Bogrea, Vasile, Romanian linguist xv
Borgia, Cesare, duke of Valentinois 87
Botta, Leonardo, Milanese diplomat 180
Božić, Ivan, Yugoslavian historian 245
Brâncoveanu, Preda, Wallachian boyar 152
Branković, Serbian noble family and dynasty:
George [Đurađ], despot of Serbia 28, 39,
41, 53, 67, 75, 109
Helena Palaiologina [Jelena Paleolog],
wife of Lazar 110
Lazar, son of George [Đurađ], despot of
Serbia 109, 110
Mara, daughter of George [Đurađ], wife of
Ottoman sultan Murad II 28
Stephen the Blind [Stefan, Stepan], son of
George [Đurađ] 110
Bratul of Milcov, Wallachian dignitary 122
Braudel, Fernand, French historian 94
Browning, Tod, American film
director 276–278
Bruhier d’Ablaincourt, Jean-Jacques, French
anatomist and translator xix, 293–294
Buczacki, noble Polish family from
Podolia 36, 131
Calcea, Wallachian court secretary 91
Callistratus, Dr., character in Henry Cass’s
film Blood of the Vampire 277
Calmet, Antoine Augustin, abbot of Senones,
author of Dissertations sur les
apparitions … 294
Cantacuzeno, Cantacuzenus, see
Kantakouzenos
Caragea [Caradja, Karadja, Caratzas,
Karatzas], noble Romanian family of
Byzantine origins: Constantin, brother of
Michael [Mihalcea] 198
Dimitri [Dimitraşcu], son of
Constantin 198
Michael [Mihalcea], purportedly married
to a descendant of Vlad the
Monk 198
Tanda, princess, claiming descent from
Dracula 198
Carradine, John, American actor 277
Index of Personal Names
Carruthers, Dr. Paul, character in Jean
Yarborough’s film The Devil Bat 277
Carvajal [Carvagial], Juan, cardinal, papal
legate 109
Cass, Henry, English film director 277
Cazan, son of Sahac, Wallachian dignitary
(chancellor, jupan) 79, 91
Ceauşescu, Nicolae, Romanian dictator ix,
xi, xviii–xix
Cernat, Alexandru, Romanian general, and
see Cerneano 268
Cerneano, character in Nizet’s novel Le
Capitaine Vampire 268
Cesarini, Julian [Giuliano], cardinal of
Sant’Angelo, papal legate 42, 44–45
Chalkokondyes, Demetrios, eminent Greek
scholar and humanist 236, 239–240 n. 88
Chalkokondyles, Laonikos, Greek historian,
author of Apodeixeis Ηistoriōn xxii, 66,
98, 120–121, 123, 137, 139, 146, 149–151,
153, 156–157, 161, 218, 234–247, 347–356
Chaney, Lon, Jr., American actor and film
star xix, 277
Charcot, Jean-Baptiste, French doctor and
scientist 273
Charlemagne, king of the Franks and
emperor of the Romans 236
Charles the Bold [Charles le Téméraire], duke
of Burgundy 6
Charles V, Holy Roman emperor 186, 204,
216
Charles Robert I [Károly, “Caroberto”], king of
Hungary and Croatia, see Anjou, dynasty
of Naples and Hungary
Ciauşanu, George F., Romanian priest and
folklorist 299
Clayton, Lloyd, Dr., character in George
Zucco’s film Dead Men Walk 277
Codrea, Wallachian dignitary 90, 121
Comanesco, last name of three characters in
Nizet’s novel Le Capitaine Vampire:
Androclès 268
Aurelio 261
Epistimia 261
Comfort, Lance, British film director and
producer 277
Comneni [Komnenoi], Empire of the Grand,
or Empire of Trebizond 135
447
Comnenus, see Komnenoi
Constantine the Great, Roman emperor 82
Constantinescu, Radu, Romanian
historian 206–208
Coppola, Francis Ford, American
screenwriter, film director and producer
x, xix, 198, 275, 278
Corvinus, John [Corvin János], son of
Matthias Corvinus 189, 203
Corvinus, Matthias [Corvin Mátyás], king of
Hungary and Croatia xii–xiv, xvii, 93,
106, 108, 109–110, 113–117, 124–125, 127,
129, 131, 132, 134–135, 139, 143–145, 147,
149, 158–169, 171–180, 185–186, 189, 196,
197, 200, 202–204, 222, 226, 227, 234, 243,
318, 344, 345, 346, 356 n. 22, 361, 362, 386
Craiovești, noble Wallachian family: Neagoe
de la Craiova and his sons Barbu
Craiovescu, Pârvu Craiovescu 78, 190
Cyriacus of Ancona [Pizzicoli, Ciriaco],
Italian humanist and traveller 238.
Dan I, voievod of Wallachia 11–12, 15
Dan II, voievod of Wallachia 14–15, 17, 24,
31, 38, 52, 131
Dan III, pretender to the Wallachian
throne 92, 103, 106, 107, 115–116, 125–127,
129, 208
Dan, Wallachian envoy 107
Danciu, son of Neagoe de la Craiova,
Wallachian dignitary 190
Darkó, Jenő [Darko, Eugenius], Hungarian
Byzantinist 235, 241
Deane, Hamilton, Irish actor, playwright and
director 276
Del Chiaro, Anton Maria, Florentine secretary
of Constantin Brancoveanu, historian
216 n. 33, 218
Delboeuf, Joseph, Belgian philosopher,
mathematician, psychologist,
hypnotist 271
Diocletian, Roman emperor, persecutor of
Christians xv, 205, 209, 312, 325
Domenichi, Domenico [de’ Domenichi,
Domenico], archbishop of Torcello, papal
legate xiv
Doukas, Michael, Greek historian, author of
[History] xxii, 14, 28, 99, 137
448
Dragomir, [son of] Ţacal, Wallachian
dignitary 90, 121
Drakulya de Sinteşti, later de Band, family
deriving descent from Dracula
John [Ioan], son of Ludovicus 186
Ludovicus 186
Vlad [Ladislaus], son of Ludovicus 186
Duca de Greci, Wallachian dignitary 90
Dumitraşcu, Nicolae I., Romanian
folklorist 299
Ebendorfer, Thomas, professor at the
University of Vienna, historian, author of
Cronica regum Romanorum 169–170,
200–201
Efrosin, monk and copyist of Russian
manuscripts 219, 363
Eleanor of Portugal, Empress of the Holy
Roman Empire, wife of Frederick III of
Habsburg xiii–xiv
Eliade, Mircea, Romanian historian of
religions and writer 274–275, 299
Elizabeth of Luxemburg, wife of emperor
Albert of Habsburg 35, 51
Engel, Johann Christian, Hungarian historian,
author of Geschichte der Moldau und
Walachey … 218
Enguerrand de Coucy, marshal of
France 48, 59
Eugene IV, pope 27, 40
Ezzelino III da Romano, Italian lord in the
March of Treviso, and notoriously cruel
tyrant xvi, 214
Felbiger, Johann Ignaz von, German
educational reformer, canon regular of the
Order of St. Augustine 299
Felix V, antipope 40
Ferdinand I of Aragon [Ferrante], king of
Naples and Sicily xvi
Ferdinand I, archduke of Austria, king of
Bohemia and Hungary, king of Croatia,
Holy Roman emperor 186, 204
Ferdinand II, archduke of Austria, major art
collector 85
Ferhad Pasha [Paşa], Ottoman military
commander 183
Fessler, Ignaz A., German historian 218
Index of Personal Names
Filipecz, János, chancellor of Hungary, bishop
of Oradea (Nagyvárad) 185
Fischart, Johann, German poet 205
Fisher, Terence, British film director 277,
278
Florescu, Wallachian noble family
George D. (“Uncle George”), Romanian
historian and genealogist ix, 182,
387
Radu R., Romanian born historian,
professor at Boston College, eminent
Dracula scholar, whose son John is an
American television producer, media
entrepreneur, and businessman ix, x,
xi, xviii–xix, 88 n. 23, 92 n. 30, 275, 277,
322 n. 18
Vintilă, Wallachian dignitary ix
Frankenhausen, Siegfried von, count,
character in film Bloody Vampire 277
Frankenstein, Victor, title character of Mary
Shelley’s novel Frankenstein 269, 275
Frederick III of Habsburg, archduke of
Austria, Holy Roman emperor xii, xiv,
35, 36, 39, 41, 75, 109, 114, 117, 123, 124,
125, 134, 147, 158, 170, 171, 173, 179, 185,
202, 203, 204, 339
Fu Manchu, Dr., character in novels by Sax
Rohmer, and subsequently popular
media 277
Garai, Ladislaus [László], Hungarian
dignitary 106
Gaspar, a butcher in Braşov 98
Gaspar, a goldsmith in Braşov 98
Gautier, Théophile, French writer, author of
La Morte amoureuse 274
Géczy-Dracula, Hungarian family in
Transylvania 187, 198, 257
Gennadios II [Georgios Kourtesios
Scholarios], patriarch of
Constantinople 289
George [Georg], royal judge in Braşov 98
George of Hungary [Geogius de Hungaria],
Dominican monk and writer
Gerard, Emily [Mrs. de Laszowska, Emily
Laszowska, Emily de Laszowska Gerard],
English writer, noted for works on
Transylvania xxii, 251, 256–260
Index of Personal Names
Gherghina, Wallachian dignitary
(constable) 122
Ghica, princely family of Wallachia and
Moldavia
Matthew [Matei], voievod of
Moldavia 291–292
Scarlat, voievod of Wallachia 184
Ghotan, Bartholomaeus, German
printer 214, 218, 380, 381
Gilling, John, English film director and
screenwriter 277
Giurescu, Constantin C., Romanian
historian ix
Grecu, Vasile, Romanian Byzantinist 235
Gregory, metropolitan of
Ungro-Wallachia 291
Gromo, Giovanandrea, Italian condottiere
and writer 56
Gutenberg, Johannes [Johannes Gensfleisch
zur Laden zum Gutenberg], German
inventor of the mechanical movable type
printing press xiv
Habsburg, German imperial dynasty, see
Albert of Habsburg, Albert VI of
Habsburg, Charles V, Ferdinand I
(archduke), Ferdinand II (archduke),
Frederick III of Habsburg, Joseph II of
Habsburg, Leopold I of Habsburg, Maria
Thersa of Habsburg, Maximilan I of
Habsburg
Hacquet, Balthasar, French physician,
professor of surgery, explorer 303
Hadji I Giray, founder of the Crimean
Khanate 224
Halley, Edmond, English astronomer and
mathematician, and “Halley’s
Comet” xxv, 77, 103, 383
Hammer, Joseph [Joseph Freiherr von
Hammer-Purgstall], Austrian
orientalist 218
Hamza, Ottoman steward of the falconers
(ca̦ kırcıbașı), governor of Nicopolis  185
138–142, 237, 240, 348–349
Han, Ulrich, German printer xvii, 168
Händel, Georg Friedrich, German
composer 218
Hangerliu, Constantin, voievod of
Wallachia 183–184
449
Hans, Benedictine monk and guardian at
Gorrion [Gornji Grad] Monastery 
122–123, 212, 336–339
Harker, Jonathan, character in Bram Stoker’s
novel Dracula 252–253, 256, 257, 260,
272, 276, 278, 298
Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu, Romanian
historian and linguist 87–88
Hefft, Leonhard [Leonardus], German notary
and historian 86–87, 201–202
Heliade-Rădulescu, Ion, Romanian
academician, poet, writer, and
translator 264, 265, 268, 299
daughters Eufrosina and Virgilia 
263–264
Henry III of Valois, king of France 194
Henry VII, Tudor king of England 203
Heraclius, Byzantine emperor 115
Herbord VIII von Auersperg, baron, governor
of Carniola, imperial Habsburg
general 183
Herod [the Great], king of Judea, instigator of
Massacre of the Innocents xv, 205, 209,
312, 325
Herodotus, ancient Greek historian 238
Herzog, Werner, German screenwriter and
film director 276, 278
Holmwood, Arthur, character in Bram
Stoker’s novel Dracula 252, 260
Holzer, Wolfgang, burgher of Vienna and
briefly mayor 173
Hopkins, Anthony, British actor of film, stage,
and television 278
Horváth de Vingárt, Gáspár, Hungarian
dignitary 187
Hufeland, Christoph Wilhelm, German
physician and professor of
pathology 294
Hunyadi, János [Iancu (Ianko) de
Hunedoara], regent and governor of
Hungary xii, 36–45, 48–53, 61, 66–77, 99,
102, 106, 107, 108, 130, 131, 132, 168, 170,
Hunyadi, Ladislas [László Hunyadi], son of
János Hunyadi 102–103, 104, 106, 108
Hupfuff, Matthias, German printer 205, 382
Ilie [Iliaş] I, voievod of Moldavia 32
Ioanăş Viteazul, tutor of Mircea and Vlad
Dracula 60
450
Irving, Henry, Sir, English actor 253
Ishak, Ottoman vizier 149, 352
Isacesco, Ioan and Marioara, characters in
Nizet’s novel Le Capitaine Vampire 260,
261, 268
Ispas, Sabina Cornelia, Romanian
academician and anthropologist 298
Ivan III, grand prince of Moscow 150, 207,
219–226, 235
Ivan IV the Terrible [Grozny], grand prince of
Moscow xvii, 193, 200, 229–230, 234
Jacob, Benedictine monk at Gorrion [Gornji
Grad] Monastery 122–123, 171, 212,
336–339
Jacob Richer, Catholic bishop of Wallachia
(Argeş) 213
Jagiellonian dynasty [Jagiellonowie],
producing kings of Poland, grand dukes of
Lithuania, kings of Hungary, and kings of
Bohemia: Anne of Bohemia and Hungary
[Anna Jagiellonka], wife of Ferdinand I of
Habsburg 204
Casimir IV [Kazimierz Andrzej
Jagiellończyk], grand duke of
Lithuania, king of Poland 32, 71, 132,
133, 175, 176, 189, 224
John I Albert [Jan Olbracht], son of
Casimir IV, king of Poland 189
Louis II of Hungary [Lajos], king of
Bohemia, and Hungary and Croatia
Hungary 204
Vladislav II of Hungary [Vladislaus,
Władysław, Wladislas], king of
Bohemia, and Hungary and
Croatia 32, 176
Vladislav II Jagiello [Władysław Jagiełło],
grand duke of Lithuania, king of
Poland 31–32
Vladislav III (Poland), I (Hungary)
[Władysław, Ulászló], king of Poland,
and Hungary and Croatia 35–36,
41–45, 49, 51
Jeremias II Tranos, patriarch of
Constantinople 290
Joan of Arc, French heroine and Catholic
saint 236
Index of Personal Names
Joasaph I Kokkas, patriarch of
Constantionople 136
John Jiskra de Brandýs [Jan Jiskra z
Brandýsa], Czech condottiere 145
John of Capistrano [San Giovanni da
Capestrano] xiii, 78 n. 42
John [Johannes] de Medias [Medgyes],
Benedictine monk at Melk 200
John [János] Vitéz, Hungarian bishop and
dignitary 134
Joseph II of Habsburg, Holy Roman
emperor 283 n. 12, 299
Joseph [Iosif], metropolitan of Wallachia
[Ungro-Wallachia] 136–137
Justinian I, Byzantine emperor 115, 232
Kämpfer, Frank, German historian 233
Kantakouzenos, Byzantine imperial family,
and aristocratic family (Cantacuzino) in
Wallachia and Moldavia: Andronic
[Andronikos], banker in Constantinople
and Wallachian dignitary (ban, grand
treasurer) 60
John [Ioan], businessman 246
Michael, nicknamed Şeytanoğlu,
businessman in Istanbul 192–193
Theodore, historian, see Spandounes
Karamani Mehmed Pasha [Paşa], Ottoman
grand vizier 239
Katabolenos, Thomas, Ottoman
secretary 136, 137, 141, 237, 240
Katona de Gelej, Stephen [István], Calvinist
intendant of Transylvania 280
Kelljan, Bob, American actor, film director
and writer 277
Kenton, Erle C., American film director 277
Kinski, Klaus, German actor 277
Klotz, Claude [pen name Patrick Cauvin],
French writer 275
Kogalnitchan, Michel de [Mihail
Kogălniceanu], Romanian historian and
statesman 218
Köleséri, Sámuel, Hungarian physician 
281–282
Komnenoi [sing. Komnenos], a Byzantine
imperial family: Alexius I, emperor 242
Isaac I, emperor 115
Index of Personal Names
Korjatowicz, Polish noble family in
Podolia 35–36
Kurbsky, Andrey, Russian military
commander, friend then opponent of tsar
Ivan IV 263–264
Kraus, Jakobus, royal judge in Sighişoara 55
Kuritsyn, Fyodor, Russian statesman,
diplomat and philosopher, probable
author of Skazanie o Dracole
voevode 150, 177, 181, 207, 219–235, 247,
357–363
Kuritsyn, Ivan Volk, brother of Fyodor,
secretary and envoy of Ivan III 271
Ladislas the Posthumous [Utószülött László],
king of Hungary and Croatia xii, 35, 49,
75, 93, 97–98, 106, 108, 171, 227
Laertius, Diogenes, ancient Greek
philosopher 238
Landres, Paul, American film and television
editor and director 278
Lavater, Johann Kaspar (or Caspar), Swiss
poet, writer, philosopher, and
theologian 87
Lawrence, T. E. (“Lawrence of Arabia”), Sir,
British author, archaeologist, military
officer, and diplomat 254
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, Irish writer, author
of Carmilla 260, 269
Le Rouge, Gustave, French writer, author of
La Guerre des vampires 274
Lebarrois, Paul, character in Henri Nizet’s
novel Suggestion 271, 273–274
Lee, Christopher, Sir, British actor, singer and
author xix, 277, 278
Leganesco, colonel, character in Nizet’s novel
Le Capitaine Vampire, see Angelescu,
Gheorghe
Leopold I of Habsburg, Holy Roman
emperor 204
Leopold I, king of Belgium 262
Lépes, George [György], Catholic bishop of
Transylvania 28
Leroux, Gaston, French journalist and
detective fiction writer 274
Lescalopier, Pierre, French Jesuit theologian,
philologist, and traveler 23
Lewis, Herschell Gordon, American
filmmaker 277
451
Liatoukine, Boris, Russian officer, vampire,
and hero of Nizet’s novel Le Capitaine
Vampire 261–262, 267–268, 274
Linart (Leonard), Wallachian court
secretary 79, 91
Livy, see Titus Livius
Louis I the Great [Nagy Lajos], king of
Hungary and Croatia, and of Poland,
see Anjou, dynasty of Naples and
Hungary
Louis XI, king of France 6, 203
Lovecraft, Howard Phillips, American horror
fiction writer 274
Lucy, character in Henri Nizet’s novel
Suggestion 272–273
Lucy, character in Bram Stoker’s novel
Dracula, see Westenra, Lucy
Lugosi, Bela [Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó],
Hungarian-American actor xix, 276, 277
Lur’e, Jakov S., Russian historian 233
Luther, Martin, German professor of theology,
key figure in the Protestant
Reformation 202
MacGowran, John Joseph “Jack,” Irish theater
and film actor 278
Machiavelli, Niccolò, Italian historian,
politician, diplomat, humanist,
writer 87, 229
Mahmud Pasha [Paşa], Ottoman grand
vizier, see Angelović, Mahmud Pasha
[Paşa]
Malatesta, Sigismondo, Italian condotierre
from Rimini xvi
Manuel the Greek, Russian diplomat 222
Marian, Simion Florea, Romanian priest and
folklorist 300
Maria Despina, wife of Radu the Handsome,
mother of Maria Voichiţa 157
Maria Voichiţa, Moldavian princess, wife of
voievod Stephen the Great 157, 191
Maria Theresa of Habsburg, Holy Roman
empress 295, 299
Marina (?), second wife of Vlad II Dracul,
mother of Radu the Handsome and
Alexandra 31, 59
Mariora Vallarga, nun in Venice, sister of
Catherine Salvaresso (wife of voievod
Alexander II of Wallachia) 194
452
Marsillac, Ulysse de, Frenchman, university
professor and publisher in Bucharest,
writer 269
Maximilian I of Habsburg, Holy Roman
emperor 179, 204, 221
McNally, Raymond T., American historian
and frequent collaborator with Radu R.
Florescu ix, x, xi, xviii–xix, 88 n. 23, 275,
277, 322 n. 18, 397
Mehmed I, Ottoman Sultan 7, 11
Mehmed II the Conqueror, Ottoman
Sultan xiii, xvi, xviii, 49, 54, 61, 72, 74, 76,
99, 101, 110–112, 114, 116, 117, 120, 125, 132,
135, 136, 141, 143, 145, 147, 148–149,
152–157, 159, 160, 161, 164, 165, 166, 171,
172, 174, 175, 176, 179–181, 185, 189, 205,
206, 216, 225, 234, 236, 237, 238, 242,
243, 246, 288–289, 332, 348, 349, 350,
351, 386
Mihaloğlu, Mehmed, Ottoman governor of
Nicopolis 189, 190
Mehmed Pasha [Paşa], Sokollu, Ottoman
grand vizier 192
Meinster, Baron, character in Terence Fisher’s
film The Brides of Dracula 277
Méndez, Fernando, Mexican horror film
director 278
Mengli I Giray, khan of the Crimean
Khanate 223–225
Mesnil, Marianne, Belgian anthropologist  Molinaro, Édouard, French film director and
298
Michael [Mihail] I, voievod of Wallachia  Moore, C. L. [Catherine Lucille],
8, 11
Michael the Brave [Mihai Viteazul], voievod
of Wallachia, Moldavia and
Transylvania 60
Michael [Mihai], Wallachian dignitary
(chancellor) 83
Michael, Benedictine monk at Gorrion
[Gornji Grad] Monastery 211, 336
Mihailović, Konstantin [Michałowicz,
Konstanty], Serbian janissary, author of
memoirs 100, 137, 142, 148
Mihnea I the Bad [Mihnea I cel Rău], voievod
of Wallachia 101, 176, 178, 186, 187–191,
216
Mihnea II the Turk [Mihnea II Turcitul], i.e.
“Convert to Islam,” voievod of
Wallachia 194, 197, 388
Index of Personal Names
Milanesi, Claudio, historian of medicine 
xix, 293
Miloş, grandson of Vlad III Dracula, son of
Mihnea I, hostage in Istanbul 192
Miloş, great-grandson of Vlad III Dracula, son
of Mircea II, professor at the Patriarchal
School in Istanbul 192
Mina, character in Bram Stoker’s novel
Dracula, see Murray, Mina
Mircea I the Old [Mircea cel Bătrân], voievod
of Wallachia, grandfather of Vlad III
Dracula 6–8, 11–13, 18, 63, 98,
118, 192
Mircea II, grandson of Vlad III Dracula, son
of Mihnea I the Bad, voievod of
Wallachia 191–192
Mircea, son of Vlad II Dracul, brother of
Vlad III Dracula 2, 10, 26, 31, 42–48, 51,
59, 60, 120
Mircea (?), one of Vlad III Dracul’s legitimate
sons, but actual name unknown; mother
an illegitimate daughter of János
Hunyadi 176, 185
Mircea, possibly illegitimate son of Vlad III
Dracula, and father of Russian monk
Vasian Dracula 187
Moses, prophet 249
Moldovean, Wallachian dignitary (spătar) 
122
screenwriter 277
American science fiction and fantasy
writer 274
Mora, Count, character in Tod Browning’s
film The Mark of the Vampire 277
Morayta, Miguel, Spanish film director and
screenwriter 277
Moro, Cristoforo, doge of Venice 147, 159
Muhtar, Mehmet, Turkish film director and
screenwriter 277–278
Münster, Sebastian, German humanist,
author of Universal Cosmography 215
Murad Davud Çelebi, nephew of Ottoman
sultan Murad II, pretender to Ottoman
throne 26
Murad II, Ottoman sultan 14, 24–28, 32, 35,
37–44, 49, 52–54, 63, 65, 67–68, 72,
98–99, 109, 140, 156, 181, 238
Index of Personal Names
Murnau, F. W. [Friedrich Wilhelm], German
film director xx, 251, 276, 277, 278, 390
Murray, Mina, character in Bram Stoker’s
novel Dracula 252, 260, 262, 272, 274,
276, 278
Naumann, Hans, German
anthropologist 248
Neagu Viteazul, Wallachian dignitary (comes
agasonum, or praefectus stabuli) 60
Negru Vodă, see Black Prince
Nero, Roman emperor, persecutor of
Christians 205, 209, 215, 312, 325
Neșrī, Ottoman historian, author of Kitāb-ı
Cihan-Nümā (Universal History) 138
Newfield, Sam, American film director 277
Nicholas of Vizakna [Ocna Sibiului,
Salzburg], vice-voievod of
Transylvania 68, 73 n. 33
Nicholas [Nicolò] Machinense, bishop of
Modrus [Modrussa], papal legate,
writer 84, 149, 150, 167, 170, 173
Nicholas Alexander [Nicolae Alexandru],
voievod of Wallachia 5, 11
Nini, Ilie, Romanian peasant, vampire 285
Nizet, François-Joseph, father of Marie and
Henri, associate curator of the Royal
Library in Brussels 262
Nizet, Henri, son of François-Joseph, Belgian
novelist, author of Suggestion xxv, 262,
270–272
Nizet, Marie, daughter of François-Joseph,
poet and novelist, author of Le Capitaine
Vampire xxiv, xxv, 260–271
Nosferatu [perhaps from Romanian
“nefârtatu,” devil], title of films by F. W.
Murnau (1922) and Werner Herzog
(1979) xx, 251, 276–277, 390
Notaras, Dositheos, patriarch of
Jerusalem 291
Noyes, James O., American doctor and
writer 295
Nyby, Christian, American film and television
director, and editor 277
Odin, key god in Norse mythology 249
Oldman, Gary, English actor and
filmmaker xix, 278
453
Oprea, Wallachian dignitary
(chancellor) 121–122
Orlok, Count, Dracula character in W. F.
Murnau’s film Nosferatu 276, 390
Pahulea, Wallachian dignitary
(treasurer) 92
Palaiologoi [sing. m. Palaiologos, f.
Palaiologina], an imperial Byzantine
family: Constantine XI, emperor 181
Helena [Jelena Paleolog], daughter of
Thomas Palaiologos, wife of Serbian,
despot Lazar Branković 110
John VIII, emperor 14, 49
Manuel II, emperor 26, 81
Papacostea, Şerban, Romanian
historian 167, 214
Papp-Dracula, Hungarian family in
Transylvania 187, 198, 257
Pătraşcu, Nicolae, voievod of Moldavia 60
Paul, archdeacon of Aleppo, traveller and
author of The Travels of Patriarch
Makarius 152
Paul, Catholic bishop of Wallachia
(Argeş) 213
Peel, David, English film and television
actor 277
[Peter I & Peter II, voievods of Moldavia: We
follow the traditional enumeration of
Moldavian princes, and not that proposed
by Rezachevici, who renumbers Peter I as
Peter II, and Peter II as Peter III (cf.
Cronologia critică a domnilor, vol. 1,
446–455, 499–502, 505–508)]
Peter I [Petru], voievod of Moldavia 70
Peter II [Petru], voievod of Moldavia 52, 70,
131
Peter Aron [Petru Aron], voievod of
Moldavia 70 n. 26, 72, 73, 76, 131–132
Peter the Lame [Petru Şchiopul], voievod of
Moldavia 197
Peter Geréb of Roşia, Saxon greav (count) of
Transylvania 104
Peterman, Saxon patrician from Sibiu 104
Petrescu, Cezar, Romanian journalist and
novelist 275
Philanthropenoi, noble Byzantine
family 242
454
Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy 45
Pius II [Enea Silvio Piccolomini], pope and
writer xiii, xxii, 53, 78, 85, 86, 114, 124, 135,
149, 152, 163, 164, 166, 167, 170, 171, 174,
200, 201
Plaines, Gérard de, seigneur de la Roche, Holy
Roman imperial secretary and
ambassador 216
Podiebrad, Catherine [Kateřina z Poděbrad],
first wife of Matthias Corvinus 203
Podiebrad, George [Jiří z Poděbrad], king of
Bohemia xii, 75, 114, 134, 175
Polanski, Roman, French-Polish film director,
producer, writer, and actor 278
Polidori, John William, English doctor and
writer, author of The Vampyre 260, 269
Pop, Mihai, Romanian ethnologist ix
Privighetoareanu, Décébale, character in
Marie Nizet’s novel Le Capitaine
Vampire 268
Pseudo-Aristotle, Secretum Secretorum 231
Quarry, Robert, American actor 277
Quintus Curtius Rufus, Roman
historian 238
Rachmaninov, noble Russian family of
Romanian origin 187
Radu II the Bald [Praznaglava, sometimes
translated “the Empty Head”], voievod of
Wallachia 15
Radu III the Handsome [Radu III cel
Frumos], voievod of Wallachia 31, 42, 59,
65, 91, 155–161, 166, 174, 175, 191
Radu IV the Great [Radu IV cel Mare],
voievod of Wallachia 186, 188, 189, 195
Radu VI [de la] Afumaţi, son of Radu IV the
Great, voievod of Wallachia 192, 216
Radu Mihnea, voievod of Wallachia and
Moldavia 194–196
Raicevich, Ignazio Stefano, Austrian consul in
Wallachia, writer 265, 286, 291
Rákóczy, George [Gheorghe], voievod of
Transylvania 280
Rangoni, Gabriele, bishop of Eger
(Erlau) 177
Reeves, Keanu, Canadian actor, director and
producer 278
Index of Personal Names
Regnault de Confide, Burgundian lord 45
Reicherstorffer, Georg, Saxon diplomat and
writer from Transylvania 79
Renfield, character in Bram Stoker’s novel
Dracula 252, 272
Rice, Anne, American writer, author of a
series of vampire novels termed “The
Vampire Chronicles” 275
Ringaud, character in Henri Nizet’s novel
Suggestion 272–273
Riva, Valerio, Italian journalist and writer on
vampires 275
Rivander, Zacharias, German historian 205
Robert the Devil, French brigand xv
Robson, Mark, Canadian-born film director
and producer 277
Roman II, voievod of Moldavia 70
Romanov, Nicolas Nicolaevich [Nikolai
Nikolaevich], Grand Duke of Russia 261
Rosen, Phil, American film director and
cinematographer 277
Rosetti, Dinu V., Romanian
archaeologist 182–183, 387
Rosny, Jean Henri, Sr., French writer 274
Rudolph of Rüdesheim, bishop of Lavant and
papal legate xiv
Rurik, Varangian prince, founder of the Rurik
dynasty reigning in Russia to 1610 204
Ruxandra, daughter of Mihnea I, Moldavian
princess, wife of Bogdan III 191
Ryder, Wynona, American actress 278
Saints, male, including holidays and churches
named after them
Andrew 86, 123, 298, 301, 378
Barbarus 206
Bartholomew 128, 129, 168, 206, 209, 311,
313, 323, 331, 365
Clement of Ankara 206
Crispin of Soissons 206
Cyprian 206
Denis 206
Eustachius 206
Eustratius 206
George 22, 39, 143, 145, 146, 206, 257, 258,
296, 298
Hugh of Lincoln 280, 291
John of Capistrano xiii, 77 n. 42
Index of Personal Names
Josaphat 206
Paul 295
Peter xvii, 229, 232, 295
Peter of Verona 206
Tryphon 206
Vincent of Saragossa 206
Saints, female, including holidays and
churches named after them
Appolonia 206
Catherine 206
Christine 206
Eulalia of Merida 206
Fausta 206
Febronia 206
Felicitas 206
Juliana of Nicomedia 206
Justina 206
Lucia of Syracuse 206
Pelagia of Tarsus 206
Salkow, Sidney, American film director,
screenwriter, and television director 277
Solomon, king of Israel 259
Salvaressa (or Salvaresso), Catherine,
Wallachian princess, wife of voievod
Alexander Mircea, other of
Mihnea II 194
Saruca Kemal, Ottoman poet in Mahmud
Paşa’s household 239
Schlözer, August-Ludwig von, German
historian 218
Scolari, Filippo Buondelmonti degli, called
Pippo Spano, Florentine condottiero in
service of Hungary 36
Șehabbedin Pașa, Ottoman beylerbeyi
(governor) of Rumelia 37, 39
Selander, Lesley, American film director 277
Selim II, Ottoman sultan 94
Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic
philosopher, statesman 217
Séphorah, character in Henri Nizet’s novel
Suggestion 271, 273
Seward, John, Dr., character in Bram Stoker’s
novel Dracula 252, 273
Sforza, Bianca Maria, daughter of Ludovico,
married by proxy to John Corvinus 203
Sforza, Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan 203
Shakespeare, William, English poet,
playwright and actor 87, 273
455
Shelley, Mary, English novelist, author of
Frankenstein 269
Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary
and Croatia, king of Germany, king of
Bohemia, king of Italy, Holy Roman
emperor xiv, 6, 13, 14, 16, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27,
31, 32, 36, 51, 61, 62, 70, 185, 215, 376
Simonetta, Cicco, treasurer of the duke of
Milan and diarist 93–94
Şincai, Gheorghe, Romanian historian 291
Sinistre, Count, film character 277
Siodmak, Robert, German film director 277
Skanderbeg, lord of Albania 66
Slobozianu, Marioara et Mitică, characters in
Marie Nizet’s novel Le Capitaine
Vampire 260
Süleyman the Magnificent, Ottoman
sultan 201, 204, 216
Sofia, queen of Poland, wife of Vladislav I
Jagiello 32
Spandounes, Theodore [Ital. Spandugino,
Teodoro], Greek historian 236
Sphrantzes, George, Greek historian 236
Stan, son of Negrea, Wallachian
dignitary 90, 107, 121
Steinhart, Georg, German historian 205
Stepan Turcin, Wallachian dignitary 122
Stephen II [Ştefan], voievod of
Moldavia 158, 159
Stephen III, the Great [Ştefan cel Mare],
voievod of Moldavia 60, 72, 131–133, 146,
153–154, 157–159, 175, 176, 179, 186, 187,
189, 191, 209, 222, 363
Stephen [Stjepan, Stefan] Tomašević, last
king of Bosnia 166, 174
Stoica, Wallachian dignitary (paharnic) 107,
122
Stoker, Bram, Irish writer, author of
Dracula ix, xix, xxii, xxiv, xxv, 187, 222,
248, 251–260, 262, 268, 269, 271, 272,
273, 274, 275, 276, 278, 322 n. 18, 372,
373, 374, 389, 390
Stryjkovski, Maciej, Polish historian 225
Șükrullah bin Șihabü’d-Din Ahmed, Ottoman
historian 239
Suza Çelebi, Ottoman historian and
poet 189
Sylvester II [Gerbert of Aurillac], pope xiii
456
Széchényi, Ferenc, Count, Hungarian
aristocrat and founder of Hungary’s
national library 218
Szilágyi, aristocratic family in Hungary and
Transylvania: Elizabeth [Erzsébet], wife of
János Hunyadi and mother of Matthias
Corvinus 106–107
Michael [Mihály], Hungarian general,
regent of Hungary, count of Bistriţa  Valentin Doleator, royal judge at
66, 106–110, 113, 124, 132, 135, 163, 189
Tallar, Georg, German surgeon and physician
in Habsburg army, author of Visum-
Repertum Anatomico-Chirurgicum
294–298
Thes, royal judge at Râsnov, Transylvania 98
Thocomerius [Tihomir, Toktamir], father of
Basarab I, voievod of Wallachia 3
Thoisy, Jacot de, Burgundian captain 45
Thuroczy, Johannes de [Thuróczy János],
Hungarian notary and judge, author of
Chronica Hungarorum 203
Timur, Tamerlane [Tīmūr-i Lang “Timur the
Lame”], Turco-Mongol conqueror, founder
of Timurid dynasty 7
Tiptoft, John 1st Earl of Worcester, “The
Butcher of England” 151–152
Titus Livius, Roman historian 238
Tommasi, Pietro di, Venetian ambassador to
Hungary 135 n. 3, 144, 146, 147, 158, 159,
166
Toxaba, Wallachian dignitary (stolnic) 122
Treadgold, Donald W., American
historian 231
Turahanoğlu Ö mer Bey, Ottoman general and
governor 242
Tūrsūn Beg [Bey], Ottoman historian, author
of Tārīh-i Ebü‘l-Feth [History of Mehmed
the Conqueror] 101, 239–240
Udrişte, Dragomir, Wallachian dignitary 89
Udrişte, Manea, Wallachian dignitary 79,
89, 121
Ugrinus, Hungarian lord of Făgăraş 3
Újlaki, Nicholas [Miklós], Hungarian
dignitary 36–37, 75, 106, 110
Ulrich II, count of Cilli [Celje], powerful rival
of the Hunyadis 75, 106, 170
Index of Personal Names
Unrest, Jakob, Austrian chronicler, author of
Österreichische Chronik 180
Uzun Hassan, Aq Qoyunlu confederation
sultan 175, 246
Vadim, Roger, French screenwriter, film
director and producer, author and
actor 278
Sighişoara 55
Vámbéry, Arminius, Ármin [Hermann
Weinberger], Hungarian orientalist and
traveler 254, 257, 260
Van Helmont, Jan Baptist, Flemish chemist,
physiologist and physician 272
Van Helsing, Abraham, character in Bram
Stoker’s novel Dracula 248, 252, 258, 268,
272, 278
Varlaam, metropolitan of Moldavia,
writer 279–281
Vasian Dracula, Russian monk, copyist of
manuscripts 187
Vasily II, grand prince of Moscow 221
Vasily III, grand prince of Moscow 204, 221
Vevelli, Constantin Baptista, Wallachian
dignitary and diplomat 198
Visconti, Filippo Maria, duke of Milan xii,
36
Vlad I, voievod of Wallachia 12
Vlad II Dracul, voievod of Wallachia, father of
Vlad III Dracula. Passim
Vlad III Dracula, voievod of Wallachia.
Passim
Vlad IV The Monk [Călugărul], voievod of
Wallachia 62, 103, 186, 198
Vladislav I, voievod of Wallachia 102
Vladislav II, voievod of Wallachia 52–53,
66–67, 69, 72–78, 89–92, 98, 103–104,
107, 131, 169, 179, 190, 209, 308, 318, 364
Voico Dobriţă, Wallachian dignitary 90, 121
Voiculescu, Vasile, Romanian poet and
writer 299
Volochov, noble Russian family of Romanian
origin 187
Volokišin, noble Russian family of Romanian
origin 187
Volotsky, Joseph, or Joseph of Volotsk, or
Joseph of Volokolamsk, Russian
Index of Personal Names
theologian and abbot of Borovsk
Monastery 231–232
Volta, Ornella, Italian musicologis and writer
on vampires 275
Vostokov, Alexandr Khristoforovich, Russian
archivist and Slavist 219
Vrančić, Antun [Antonius Verantius,
Verancsics Antal], Croatian prelate, writer,
diplomat, archbishop of Estergom 15,
56, 216
Wagner, Peter, German printer 87, 201, 380
Wass, Anna, wife of Vlad Drakulya de
Band 187
Wavrin, Jehan de, Burgundian chronicler and
author of Croniques et anciennes istoires
de la Grande Bretaigne, à présent nommé
Engleterre xxii, 2, 10, 43, 46
Wavrin, Walerand de, Burgundian knight and
crusader 45–49, 59, 61
Weissman, Judith, American literary
scholar 273
Wenceslas IV of Bohemia, king of Bohemia,
king of the Romans [Germany] 199
Westenra, Lucy, character in Bram Stoker’s
novel Dracula 252, 260, 272–274
Wey, William, English pilgrim and
writer 234
Wilhelm II of Hollenzollern, emperor of
Germany 276
William of Newburgh or Newbury [Guilelmus
Neubrigensis], English Augustinian canon
and historian 279–280
457
Wilkinson, William, British Consul to
Wallachia and Moldavia, author of An
Account of the Principalities of Wallachia
and Moldavia xv, xxii, 254, 256–257, 260,
389
Winslow, Jacques Bénigne [Jacob Benignus
Winsløw], Danish-born French
anatomist xix, 293
Wolf, Andreas, German doctor and
writer 292–293
Wolfit, Donald, Sir, British
actor-manager 277
Worrell, Everil [Lireve Monet, Everil W.
Murphy], American science-fiction
writer 274
Yarbrough, Jean, American film director 
277
Yorga, Count, character in American vampire
films 277
Zamfira, character in Marie Nizet’s novel Le
Capitaine Vampire 260
Zapolya, John I [Zápolya János], king of
Hungary 205
Zapolya, John II Sigismund [Zápolya János
Zsigmond], son of John I Szapolyai and
king of Hungary 205
Zucco, George, British actor 277
Zwinger, Theodor, Swiss physician, scholar,
encyclopedist 205