Vlad from Draculas Castle

Blood is up over sale of Dracula's castle

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This character is often confused with Vlad Tepes Vlad the Impaler , sometimes known as Vlad Dracul, who was a Walachian Prince with a castle, now in ruins, located in the Principality of Wallachia. Bram Stoker never visited Romania. Its Product and Its People", London: Longmans, to describe his imaginary Dracula's Castle.

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Dracula — as he is perceived today — is a fictitious character whose name derives from the appellation given to Vlad Tepes, the ruler of Wallachia from and , and who, for largely political reasons, was depicted by some historians of that time as a blood-thirsty ruthless despot. The rest of the Dracula myth derives from the legends and popular beliefs in ghosts and vampires prevalent throughout Transylvania.

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Vlad III's political and military tack truly came to the forefront amid the fall of Constantinople in After the fall, the Ottomans were in a position to invade all of Europe. Vlad, who had already solidified his anti-Ottoman position, was proclaimed voivode of Wallachia in One of his first orders of business in his new role was to stop paying an annual tribute to the Ottoman sultan — a measure that had formerly ensured peace between Wallachia and the Ottomans.

To consolidate his power as voivode, Vlad needed to quell the incessant conflicts that had historically taken place between Wallachia's boyars. According to legends that circulated after his death, Vlad invited hundreds of these boyars to a banquet and — knowing they would challenge his authority — had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled on spikes. This is just one of many gruesome events that earned Vlad his posthumous nickname, Vlad the Impaler. This story — and others like it — is documented in printed material from around the time of Vlad III's rule, according to Miller.

Whether or not these stories are wholly true or significantly embellished is debatable, Miller added. After all, many of those printing the pamphlets were hostile to Vlad III. But some of the pamphlets from this time tell almost the exact same gruesome stories about Vlad, leading Miller to believe that the tales are at least partially historically accurate. Some of these legends were also collected and published in a book, "The Tale of Dracula," in , by a monk who presented Vlad III as a fierce, but just ruler.

Around the same time, a group of Ottoman envoys allegedly had an audience with Vlad but declined to remove their turbans, citing a religious custom. Commending them on their religious devotion, Vlad ensured that their turbans would forever remain on their heads by reportedly having the head coverings nailed to their skulls.

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And in front of the capital he found the bodies of the Ottoman prisoners of war that Vlad had taken — all impaled," Curta said. Vlad's victories over the invading Ottomans were celebrated throughout Wallachia, Transylvania and the rest of Europe — even Pope Pius II was impressed. Not long after the impalement of Ottoman prisoners of war, in August , Vlad was forced into exile in Hungary, unable to defeat his much more powerful adversary, Mehmet II.

Vlad was imprisoned for a number of years during his exile, though during that same time he married and had two children. Vlad's younger brother, Radu, who had sided with the Ottomans during the ongoing military campaigns, took over governance of Wallachia after his brother's imprisonment. But after Radu's death in , local boyars, as well as the rulers of several nearby principalities, favored Vlad's return to power. The sultan and the main Ottoman army left Wallachia, but more and more Wallachians deserted to Radu. Vlad went to Transylvania to seek assistance from Matthias Corvinus , King of Hungary , in late , but Corvinus had him imprisoned.

During this period, anecdotes about his cruelty started to spread in Germany and Italy.

He fought in Corvinus's army against the Ottomans in Bosnia in early Basarab returned with Ottoman support before the end of the year. Books describing Vlad's cruel acts were among the first bestsellers in the German-speaking territories. In Russia, popular stories suggested that Vlad was able to strengthen central government only through applying brutal punishments, and a similar view was adopted by most Romanian historians in the 19th century. Vlad's reputation for cruelty and his patronymic inspired the name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker 's novel Dracula.

The Order of the Dragon was dedicated to halting the Ottoman advance into Europe. Vlad Dracul again acknowledged the sultan's suzerainty and promised to pay a yearly tribute to him in or Upon the death of his father and elder brother, Vlad became a potential claimant to Wallachia. We are unable to do this because an emissary from Nicopolis came to us Therefore, we ask you to have patience until we see what has happened to [Hunyadi].

If he returns from the war we will meet him and we will make peace with him. But if you will be our enemies now, and if something happens, Vlad first settled in Edirne in the Ottoman Empire after his fall. The circumstances and the date of Vlad's return to Wallachia are uncertain.

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Multiple sources including Laonikos Chalkokondyles 's chronicle recorded that hundreds or thousands of people were executed at Vlad's order at the beginning of his reign. Vlad sent the customary tribute to the sultan. Of these he impaled some and burned others. After the execution of the Ottoman officials, Vlad gave orders in fluent Turkish to the commander of the fortress of Giurgiu to open the gates, enabling the Wallachian soldiers to break in the fortress and capture it. Having learnt of Vlad's invasion, Mehmed II raised an army of more than , strong, that was said to be "second in size only to the one" [85] that occupied Constantinople in , according to Chalkokondyles.

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.

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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. Tursun Beg recorded that the Ottomans suffered from summer heat and thirst during the campaign.

Vlad the Impaler - Wikipedia

Matthias Corvinus came to Transylvania in November Vlad was first imprisoned "in the city of Belgrade" [] now Alba Iulia in Romania , according to Chalkokondyles. Matthias Corvinus recognized Vlad as the lawful prince of Wallachia, but he did not provide him military assistance to regain his principality. The place of his burial is unknown. Rosetti in found no tomb below the supposed "unmarked tombstone" of Vlad in the monastery church. Only many bones and jaws of horses.

Vlad had two wives, according to modern specialists. Vlad's eldest son, [] Mihnea , was born in Stories about Vlad's brutal acts began circulating during his lifetime. The meistersinger Michael Beheim wrote a lengthy poem about Vlad's deeds, allegedly based on his conversation with a Catholic monk who had managed to escape from Vlad's prison.

In Gabriele Rangoni, Bishop of Eger and a former papal legate , [] understood that Vlad had been imprisoned because of his cruelty. Turkish messengers came to [Vlad] to pay respects, but refused to take off their turbans, according to their ancient custom, whereupon he strengthened their custom by nailing their turbans to their heads with three spikes, so that they could not take them off. The stories about Vlad's plundering raids in Transylvania were clearly based on an eyewitness account, because they contain accurate details including the lists of the churches destroyed by Vlad and the dates of the raids.

The invention of movable type printing contributed to the popularity of the stories about Vlad, making them one of the first "bestsellers" in Europe. He put the people in the cauldron and put their heads in the holes and fastened them there; then he filled it with water and set a fire under it and let the people cry their eyes out until they were boiled to death. And then he invented frightening, terrible, unheard of tortures. He ordered that women be impaled together with their suckling babies on the same stake.

The babies fought for their lives at their mother's breasts until they died. Then he had the women's breasts cut off and put the babies inside headfirst; thus he had them impaled together. There are more than twenty manuscripts written between the 15th and 18th centuries [] which preserved the text of the Skazanie o Drakule voievode The Tale about Voivode Dracula.

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