vlad the impaler

Vlad

the Impaler

Daniela gomez

Vlad III Dracula

Died 1476, north of present-day Bucharest, Romania)whose cruel methods of punishing his enemies gained notoriety in 15th-century Europe. Some in the scholarly community have suggested that Bram Stoker’s Dracula character was based on Vlad.

Biography

Vlad was the second of four brothers born into the noble family of Vlad II Dracul. His sobriquet Dracula (meaning “son of Dracul”) was derived from the Latin draco (“dragon”) after his father’s induction into the Order of the Dragon, created by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund for the defense of Christian Europe against the Ottoman Empire. Vlad moved to Târgoviște, Walachia, in 1436 when his father assumed leadership of the Walachian voivodate30

About Dracula....

Though Dracula may seem like a singular creation, Stoker in fact drew inspiration from a real-life man with an even more grotesque taste for blood: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia or — as he is better known — Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes), a name he earned for his favorite way of dispensing with his enemies.Situated between Christian Europe and the Muslim lands of the Ottoman Empire, Transylvania and Wallachia were frequently the scene of bloody battles as Ottoman forces pushed westward into Europe, and Christian Crusaders repulsed the invaders or marched eastward toward the Holy Lan

Years of captivity

Under the Ottomans, Vlad and his younger brother were tutored in science, philosophy and the arts — Vlad also became a skilled horseman and warrior. According to some accounts, however, he may also have been imprisoned and tortured for part of that time, during which he would have witnessed the impalement of his the Ottomans' enemies. The rest of Vlad's family, however, fared even worse: His father was ousted as ruler of Wallachia by local warlords (boyars) and was killed in the swamps near Balteni, Wallachia, in 1447.

The son of the dragon

Whether these events turned Vlad III Dracula ("son of the dragon") into a ruthless killer is a matter of historical speculation. What is certain, however, is that once Vlad was freed from Ottoman captivity shortly after his family's death, his reign of blood began.In 1453, the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, threatening all of Europe with an invasion. Vlad was charged with leading a force to defend Wallachia from an invasion. His 1456 battle to protect his homeland was victorious: Legend holds that he personally beheaded his opponent, Vladislav II, in one-on-one combat.

What is impaling?

Impaling is a particularly gruesome form of torture and death: A wood or metal pole is inserted through the body either front to back, or vertically, through the rectum or vagina. The exit wound could be near the victim's neck, shoulders or mouth.Impaling is a particularly gruesome form of torture and death: A wood or metal pole is inserted through the body either front to back, or vertically, through the rectum or vagina. The exit wound could be near the victim's neck, shoulders or mouth.

Tens of thousands killed

In total, Vlad is estimated to have killed about 80,000 people through various means. This includes some 20,000 people who were impaled and put on display outside the city of Targoviste: The sight was so repulsive that the invading Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, after seeing the scale of Vlad's carnage and the thousands of decaying bodies being picked apart by crows, turned back and retreated to Constantinople.

death

In 1476, while marching to yet another battle with the Ottomans, Vlad and a small vanguard of soldiers were ambushed, and Vlad was killed and beheaded — by most reports, his head was delivered to Mehmed II in Constantinople as a trophy to be displayed above the city's gates.

The Middle Ages were notoriously violent, and the name of Vlad III Dracula may have been a mere historical footnote were it not for an 1820 book by the British consul to Wallachia