Vampire: A being that survives by feeding on the life essence of the living.
Vampires are most often described as the undead; creatures of darkness surviving from the blood of their victims. They are beautiful, immortal, and terrifying; the ultimate predator.
Are Vampires purely fiction though? Is there any truth to their legend?
The first documented vampire, Vlad III, also known as Vlad Tepes, was born in December, 1431, in Sighișoara, Transylvania, to Vlad II Dracul, the illegitimate son of Mircea I of Wallachia. Vlad II had received the name “Dracul,” meaning “the son of Dracul (or the Dragon),” when he was inducted into the Order of the Dragon, created by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund for the defense of Christian Europe against the Ottoman Empire.
When his half-brother Alexander I Aldea died in 1436, Vlad II seized the Walachian voivodate (principality) and the Dracul family moved to Târgoviște, Wallachia.
In March 1442, Vlad II did not support an Ottoman invasion of Transylvania. To prove his loyalty, Vlad II had to travel to Gallipoli and meet with Sultan Murad II. Vlad Tepes and his brother Radu accompanied their father to the Ottoman Empire, where they were ultimately handed over to Sultan Murad II and held hostage in order to secure his loyalty.
Vlad and Radu were imprisoned in the fortress of Eğrigöz (now Doğrugöz). The boys were tutored in science, philosophy and the arts. Vlad was trained in the arts of war, specifically horsemanship and swordsmanship. While Radu adjusted well to captivity, enjoying his lessons and even forging a friendship with the Sultan’s son, Mehmet II, Vlad did not appreciate being held prisoner. In addition to learning, he was imprisoned and tortured, made to watch the impalement of the Ottoman’s enemies.
Meanwhile, in Wallachia, Vlad’s father and older brother Mircea had other problems. In 1447 Vlad II was ousted as ruler by local warlords (boyars) and was then killed in the swamps near Balteni. Mircea was then tortured, blinded, and buried alive. Just after their deaths, Vlad II was released from Ottoman control and allowed to return to Wallachia. What happened next, is his legacy.
Wallachia was taken over by Vladislav II, and while he was away leading an army against the Ottoman Empire, Vlad snuck in at the head of his own Ottoman army and defeated Vladislav’s army, successfully taking command of Wallachia. Vlad’s rule, also known as his first reign, was short lived though, as Vladislav returned with the remnants of his army and ran Vlad out and into exile.
Vlad fled and did not return to Wallachia until the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. He was charged with leading a force to defend Wallachia from invasion, and in 1456, he was victorious, personally defeating and beheading Vladislav II in one-on-one combat. He was once again, ruler of Wallachia.
The lands of Wallachia were in ruins, due to the constant warfare and feuding boyars. In the spring of 1457, Vlad invited hundreds of boyars, including those responsible for killing his father and brother, to lunch. There, he had all his guests stabbed, their bodies impaled while they were still alive.
Impalement is the act of inserting a wooden or metal pole through the body, either front to back, or vertically through the rectum or vagina, leaving an exit wound near the victim’s neck, shoulders, or mouth. The pole could be either rounded, or with a sharp point. A rounded pole was preferred as it wouldn’t damage internal organs, and thereby prolong the victims’ suffering. The pole would then be raised vertically to display the victims torment, and it could take anywhere from hours to days for the impaled person to die.
Easter, 1459, Vlad had all the noble families, that were part of the princely council, arrested. The oldest ones were impaled, and the rest were made to walk from the capital to Poenari – over 62 miles. There, they were tasked with building a fortress on the ruins of an old outpost overlooking the Arges River.
Dozens of Saxon merchants in Kronstadt who had once allied with the boyars were impaled. Even diplomatic envoys, who declined to remove their hats, citing religious customs, were commended for their religious devotion. Vlad ensured them they would never have to remove their hats, then had their hats nailed to their skulls.
Vlad became known for his violent punishments. Saxon detractors from Transylvania claimed that he ordered the condemned to be skinned, boiled, beheaded, blinded, strangulated, hanged, burned, roasted, chopped, nailed, and buried alive. He commanded his victims have their ears, nose, tongue and genitals cut. His favorite, however, was the impalement, where his new name, Tepes (Impaler), was derived from
In 1462, when Mehmet II, invaded Wallachia, he found Târgoviște deserted aside from the rotting remains of Vlad’s prisoners, impaled on spikes. Mehmet didn’t retreat, but couldn’t gain any headway either. His men camped outside. Vlad, had his soldiers dress in Ottoman garb, and he led them on a midnight raid of the sultan’s camp.
While they failed to kill the sultan, they did create mass confusion among the Ottoman soldiers. These soldiers stayed up all night, slaughtering one another, believing that their allies were actually their enemies.
Vlad’s tactics became known as psychological warfare. With limited resources, limited men in his army, he did what he had to to fight the enemy, without the strength of a large army. It is said that on one occasion, he dined in a forest of defeated warriors, surrounded by their writhing bodies on impaled poles, dipping his bread in the blood of his victims.
Vlad then wrote to a military ally, “I have killed peasants, men and women, old and young, who lived at Oblucitza and Novoselo, where the Danube flows into the sea … We killed 23,884 Turks, without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers …Thus, your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace.”
Vlad Tepes is estimated to have killed over 80,000 people, of which at least 20,000 were impaled and put on display outside the city of Târgoviște.
His victories over the Ottomans were celebrated throughout Wallachia, Transylvania, and the rest of Europe. He had even managed to impress Pope Pius II.
It wasn’t until 1476, that Vlad was beheaded and killed while marching to battle with a small vanguard of soldiers. His head was taken and delivered to Mehmed II in Constantinople as a trophy to be displayed above the city’s gates. Today, Vlad Tepes can be found in the Comana Monastery, Comana, Romania.
Saxon X century engravings, located in the Royal Library in London, describe Vlad as a monster, a vampire that drinks human blood and a great lover of cruelty. Were his acts enough to deem him the world’s first vampire? You decide.
If Vlad Tepes was the first, then lets look at the last – at least the last vampire in New England – Mercy Brown. If Vlad Tepes fascinates you, then I highly recommend the book, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.
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