Vlad the Impaler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Vlad III DraculaВладъ Цепѣшъ |
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The Ambras Castle portrait of Vlad III, c. 1560, reputedly a copy of an original made during his lifetime.
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| Voivode of Wallachia | |
| Reign | 1448; 1456–1462; 1476 |
| Born | November or December 1431 Segesvár, Kingdom of Hungary (city now known as Sighișoara, Romania) |
| Died | December 1476 or January 1477, exact date unknown (aged 44/45) Wallachia (exact location unknown) |
| House | House of Drăculești (branch of the House of Basarab) |
| Father | Vlad II Dracul |
| Mother | Cneajna of Moldavia (presumed) |
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, is more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler. He was born in Sighișoara, Transylvania, Kingdom of Hungary, in 1431. He was the Prince of Wallachia and ruled there three times, in 1448, 1456–1462 and 1476.
In the English-speaking world, Vlad is best known for the legends of his cruelty. These legends gave Bram Stoker the idea for his main character in the popular Dracula novel.
Contents
Historical background
Wallachia was placed between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The Turks were fighting against the Kingdom of Hungary and this made Wallachia a battle ground between Turks and Hungarians. The rulers of Wallachia were chosen by the Romanian aristocrats, called boyars. The ruler was often from a noble house, sometimes an illegitimate prince born outside of marriage. The country rulers were struggling with each other, and this was resulting in instability, family disputes and murders.
Biography
Family background
Vlad the Impaler was born in 1431. His father was Vlad II Dracul. His mother is unknown. Vlad II was married to princess Cneajna of Moldavia. He had several mistresses. Vlad III was raised by Cneajna with the help of her household. He had two brothers, Mircea born c. 1430 and Radu born 1435. He also had a half-brother, Vlad the Monk born around 1425-1430.
Vlad II went to the court of Holy Roman Emperor, Sigismund of Luxemburg as a young man. Sigismund was supporting Vlad II for the throne of Wallachia, and made Vlad II knight 1431 of the Order of the Dragon (Societas Draconis in Latin).
The oldest brother, probably named Mircea, was sent by Vlad II to fight the war against the Turks in 1444. This war called the Battle of Varna was lost. Mircea and his father died in 1447.
Vlad's half-brother. Vlad the Monk was waiting in Transylvania for a chance to rule Wallachia. Vlad the Monk was a monk until he became prince of Wallachia in 1482.
Radu, known as Radu III the Fair or Radu the Handsome, the youngest brother, was also Vlad’s most important rival as he continuously tried to replace Vlad on the throne.
Marriage
From his first marriage, Vlad the Impaler (or Vlad III) had a son, later prince of Wallachia, as Mihnea the Evil. His first wife, whose name we do not know, died during the war 1462. Vlad III the Impaler was fighting against the Turks. The legend says that the Turkish army surrounded Vlad's castle, the Poienari Castle, led by his brother Radu the Handsome. Vlad's wife threw herself off the tower into the Argeş River below the castle. According to legend she remarked that she "would rather have her body be eaten by the fish of the Argeş than be captured by the Turks."
Vlad had another two sons with his second wife Ilona Szilágyi a fraternal cousin of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary. Some historian believe they may have also had a daughter named Maria.
Early years
Vlad was very likely born in the city of Sighişoara in Transylvania, then a part of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the winter of 1431. Sighişoara was a military fortress at that time. He was born as the second son to his father Vlad Dracul. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome. Although his native country was Wallachia, the family lived in exile in Transylvania because his father had been chased away by pro-Ottoman boyars.
A hostage of the Ottoman Empire
Vlad's father was pressured by the (Turkish) Ottoman sultan. He gave a promise to be the vassal of the Sultan and gave up his two younger sons as hostages so that he would keep his promise.
Vlad suffered much at the hands of the Ottomans, and was locked up in an underground prison; however, his younger brother, Radu, caught the eye of the sultan's son. Radu was released and converted to Islam, and he was allowed into the Ottoman royal court.
These years had a great influence on Vlad. They shaped Vlad's character. He was often whipped and beaten by the Turks for being stubborn and rude. He developed a well-known hatred for Radu and for Mehmed, who would later become the sultan.
Short reign and exile
Vlad's father and Vlad's older brother Mircea were dead at this point. The Turks invaded Wallachia and the Sultan put Vlad III on the throne as his puppet ruler. His rule at this time was short; Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and chased him away the same year. Vlad fled to Moldavia and was put under the protection of his uncle, Bogdan II.
War
Bogdan was assassinated. Vlad took a chance and fled to Hungary. Impressed by Vlad's knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, Hunyadi pardoned him and took him in as an adviser. Later, Hunyadi made him the Kingdom of Hungary's candidate for the throne of Wallachia.
In 1456, Hungary invaded Serbia to chase away the Turks, and at the same time Vlad III invaded Wallachia. Both invasions were successful. Hunyadi suddenly died of the plague. Vlad became prince of Wallachia.
Main reign (1456–62)
Vlad was spending most of his time at the court of the city of Târgovişte. He made laws, met foreign ambassadors, judged in trials. He reinforced some castles and probably enjoyed hunting with his friends. The constant state of war since the death of his grandfather, Mircea the Elder, in 1418, led to increased crime levels and less agricultural production. Trade had almost disappeared in Wallachia.
Vlad tried to solve these problems with severe methods. He needed an economically stable country.
Vlad wanted to eliminate all threats to his power, mainly the rival nobility groups, such as the boyars. This was done mainly by killing them and reducing the their economic role. The Wallachian nobility had connections with the Saxon merchants. The Saxons lived in the free towns of Transylvania, making trade flourish. Vlad cut their towns trade privileges with Wallachia, and started war against them.
Vlad gave key positions in the Prince’s Council to people of lower rank who were loyal to him. Vlad preferred to knight men from the free peasants. Vlad III was always on guard against the Dăneşti clan. Some of his attacks into Transylvania may have been efforts to kill or capture Dăneşti princes. Several members of the Dăneşti clan died at Vlad's hands. Rumors say that thousands of citizens of the free towns that sheltered his rivals were impaled by Vlad. One captured Dăneşti prince was forced to read his own funeral speech while he kneeled at an open grave before his execution.
Personal crusade
There was a war between the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom. Following family traditions, Vlad decided to side with the Hungarians. To the end of the 1450s there was once again talk about a war against the Turks, in which the king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus would play the main role. Knowing this, Vlad stopped paying money to the Ottomans in 1459, and at around 1460, he made a new alliance with Corvinus. The Turks did not like this and tried to remove him from power but they failed. In the winter of 1461 Vlad attacked and devastated the area between Serbia and the Black Sea, leaving over 20,000 people dead.
In response to this, the Sultan Mehmed II headed towards Wallachia with an army of 60,000 men in the spring of 1462. With his army of 20,000-30,000 men Vlad was not able to stop the Turks from entering Wallachia. The Turks occupied the capital Târgovişte (June 4, 1462) and chased Vlad away. Vlad was hiding and made small attacks on the Turks. On the night of June 16 Vlad and some of his men entered the main Turkish camp, wearing Turkish clothing, and attempted to kill Mehmed. Later the Turkish army retired and left Vlad’s brother, Radu the Handsome, as the new ruler prince. Radu the Handsome gathered support from the nobility and Vlad fled to Hungary. In August 1462 Radu made a deal with the Hungarian Crown.
In captivity
Vlad was living in exile because he was afraid of the boyars of Wallachia. Vlad escaped to Hungary but he was put in prison there. The exact time of Vlad's captivity is not known for sure. Apparently his imprisonment was not too dangerous. He was able to gradually win his way back into the favor of King Matthias. He was able to meet and marry a member of the royal family (the cousin of King Matthias). However, some do not believe that it was likely to happen that a prisoner was permitted to marry into the royal family.
He had two sons with his new wife. Vlad also became a member of the Roman Catholic Church. Diplomatic letters and writings from Buda during this time show that Vlad's actual period of imprisonment was short.
The openly pro-Turkish policy of Vlad's brother, Radu was probably a cause in Vlad's good treatment while in prison. It is interesting to note that the Russian texts, normally very favorable to Vlad Ţepeş, tells that even in captivity he could not give up his favorite games; he often captured birds and mice which he tortured.
The years before his final release in 1474 (when he began making plans for the reconquest of Wallachia), Vlad lived with his new wife in a house in the Hungarian capital. His sons were about ten years old when he reconquered Wallachia in 1476.
Return to Wallachia and death
Around 1475 Vlad and Stefan Báthory of Transylvania invaded Wallachia with a mixed force of Transylvanians, some dissatisfied Wallachian boyars, and Moldavians sent by Prince Stephen III of Moldavia, Vlad's cousin. Vlad's brother, Radu the Handsome, died a couple of years earlier and had been replaced on the Wallachian throne by another Turkish candidate, Prince Basarab the Elder, a member of the Dăneşti clan. When Vlad's army arrived, Prince Basarabs army fled, some to the Turks, others in the mountains. After placing Vlad Ţepeş on the throne, Stephen Báthory and his forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a very weak position. Vlad had little time to get support before a large Turkish army entered Wallachia to put back Prince Basarab on the throne. Vlad's cruelties over the years made the boyars to believe that they had a better chance to survive under Prince Basarab. Even the peasants, tired of the cruelty of Vlad, abandoned him. Vlad had to meet the Turks with the small forces at his disposal, which were made up of less than four thousand men.
There are several variants of Vlad III the Impaler's death. Some sources say he was killed in battle against the Turks near Bucharest in December of 1476. Others say he was killed by disloyal Wallachian boyars in the war against the Turks, or during a hunt. Others believe Vlad was killed in the war, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards. Still other reports claim that Vlad was accidentally killed by one of his own men. Vlad's body was decapitated by the Turks and his head was sent to Istanbul preserved in honey. The sultan had it displayed on a stake as proof that Kazıklı Bey was dead. The exact place of his grave is unknown.
Legacy
Tales and legends about Vlad stayed a part of folklore among the Romanian peasants. By constant retelling they have become confused and created an ideal picture of a big national hero. Among the Romanian peasants, Vlad Ţepeş was sometimes remembered as a prince who defended his country.
But sometimes he is remembered as a very cruel and often capricious ruler. There are several events that are common to all tales. One tale is about foreign ambassadors whom Vlad Ţepeş was meeting at Târgovişte. All versions agree that Vlad, in response to some real or imagined insult, (perhaps because they refused to remove the hats in Vlad's presence), had their hats nailed to their heads.
A good description of Vlad Dracula survives, courtesy of Nicholas of Modrussa, who wrote:
He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cruel and terrible appearance, a long straight nose, distended nostrils, a thin and reddish face in which the large wide-open green eyes were enframed by bushy black eyebrows, which made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven but for a moustache. The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull's neck supported the head, from which black curly locks were falling to his wide-shouldered person.
His famous portrait was rediscovered in the late 1800s, in the gallery of horrors at Innsbruck's Ambras Castle.
Cruelty
Vlad III Ţepeş has been described as very cruel. The old Romanian word for dragon is Dracul, which in modern Romanian means "devil". The Wallachians gave Vlad III the Impaler this nickname Dracul, because of his cruelty.
His victims included women, children, peasants, great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants. However, the vast majority of his European victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and Wallachia. Most of the merchants there were German-speaking Saxons who were seen as bad people because they were not Romanian. He saw the boyars as people who were not loyal (Vlad's own father and older brother were murdered by boyars).
Much of the information we have about Vlad III Ţepeş comes from texts published in the Holy Roman Empire in German texts from 1488 and books written in Russian. These were entertainment in a society where the printing press was new. The texts were reprinted over the thirty years following Vlad's death. The German texts said Vlad Ţepeş was a person who terrorized the land and killed innocents. The Russian texts said his actions were justified, because Vlad helped them. The texts agree on some details.
According to the texts, he was particularly cruel against women and wanted his people to work hard. Merchants who cheated their customers were likely to be killed because of that.
The vampire legend
The fictional vampire in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker was inspired by the legends of this Wallachian prince. The cruel person of the Impaler was a suitable character for Stoker's purposes. The events of Vlad's life happened in a region of the world that was still medieval in Stoker's time.
Although there were vampire tales originating elsewhere, the vampire, as he became known in Europe, largely originated in Southern Slavic and Greek folklore. The vampire tale is virtually absent in Romanian culture. Vampirism became part of the popular culture in Europe beginning in the late 17th century. Philosophers in the West began to study the phenomenon. It was during this period that Dom Augustine Calmet wrote a famous text on vampirism in Hungary. It was also during this period that authors and playwrights first began to explore the vampire legend. Stoker's novel was a work in a long series of works that were inspired by the reports coming from the Balkans.
| Preceded by Vladislav II |
Prince of Wallachia 1448 |
Succeeded by Vladislav II |
| Preceded by Vladislav II |
Prince of Wallachia 1456–1462 |
Succeeded by Radu cel Frumos |
| Preceded by Basarab Laiotă cel Bătrân |
Prince of Wallachia 1475–1476 |
Succeeded by Basarab Laiotă cel Bătrân |
Images for kids
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Vlad's father, Vlad Dracul
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The house in the main square of Sighișoara where Vlad's father lived from 1431 to 1435
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Lands ruled around 1390 by Vlad the Impaler's grandfather, Mircea I of Wallachia (the lands on the right side of the Danube had been lost to the Ottomans before Vlad's reign)
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Ruins of the Princely Court in Târgoviște
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Medieval seats (or administrative units) of the Transylvanian Saxons
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The Battle with Torches, a painting by Theodor Aman about Vlad's Night Attack at Târgoviște
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Renaissance palaces of Matthias Corvinus's summer residence at Visegrád (engraving from the 1480s)
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Basarab Laiotă, who could secure his throne against Vlad with Ottoman support
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Ruins of Poienari Castle, the scene of a popular tale about Vlad
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Pilate Judging Jesus Christ, 1463, National Gallery, Ljubljana
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The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, 1470–1480, Belvedere Galleries
See also
In Spanish: Vlad Drácula para niños
