Dracula, Prince of Many Faces

by Radu R Florescu

  What was Dracula's attitude toward this complex power play in neighboring Hungary? Although he had sworn allegiance to the Habsburg boy king, Dracula's loyalties lay more strongly with the family that had helped secure for him the Wallachian throne. Michael Szilágy turned to the Wallachian prince for help, and it is clear from the existing correspondence that the two leaders considered themselves brothers in arms. As the struggle between the Habsburgs and the Hunyadis broke into the open, King Ladislas V was supported by his former guardian, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, and the German cities of Transylvania. Dracula supported Szilágy, and thus he became the enemy of the German towns.

  The initial phase of his undeclared war against the Saxons took place in northeastern Transylvania, when the German population of Bistria revolted against Mihály Szilágy during the summer of 1457, allegedly because of fiscal abuses of the Szilágy administration. Szilágy immediately appealed to Dracula to help him quell the disturbance. Even though Bistria was fortified, the Dracula-Szilágy forces were able to penetrate into the town, and their soldiers looted and burned the homes of the suspected leaders of the insurrection. Those rebels who survived fled southwest toward Braov and Sibiu. Dracula was rewarded by Szilágy with the gift of a castle located at the Borgo Pass, close to the medieval city of Rodna, only the ruins of which have survived. (The fact that this is precisely the location Bram Stoker used in the opening chapters of his famous novel lends additional support to the view that the Anglo-Irish author expended some effort in research attempting to base his novel on authentic history.)

  Evidently persecution of Germans at Bistria had aroused the ire of all the German cities of Transylvania, primarily Sibiu and Braov, as well as that of the Szeklers under the command of their powerful Count Oswald Rozgony, now captain general of all the royal forces in Transylvania. They were all the more indignant toward Dracula since it was rumored that, notwithstanding all his declarations of friendship, he had, shortly after his accession to power, sent an embassy to Constantinople to renew his vassal relationship with the sultan. Dracula, in turn, was furious with the Braovians, whom he had considered allies by virtue of the generous trade concessions that he had made. The terrain was obviously propitious for further acts of hostility on both sides.

  The mayor of Braov resorted to the traditional weapon of encouraging subversion in Wallachia by espousing the cause of the Dneti rival, in this instance, Dan III, the brother of Vladislav II, whom Dracula had slain at Tîrgsor in 1456, and a friend of the Habsburgs. Dan, who now established his headquarters at Braov, had himself crowned by dissident boyars and styled himself “Dan III, by the Grace of God Prince of Ungro-Wallachia, Duke of Fgra and Amla,” much in the manner of Prince Mircea, Dracul, or, for that matter, Dracula himself.

  At Braov Dan was surrounded by a regular court and took up residence in a small palace in the Romanian district outside the city walls, on the edge of a hill called Tîmpa. Nearby stood the small wooden Orthodox church of Saint Nicolae, where his court worshipped and where he was presumably crowned. The names of Dan's boyar supporters are known to us; some of them were large landowners in the Fgra district. Others had left Wallachia to save their lives following the mass impalements described in the last chapter. Among them was a former chief treasurer called Albu, the only surviving member of a famous family that had been rooted out by Dracula because they were partisans of Vladislav II. It should also be noted that one boyar from the Fgra district who supported Dan III, Bogdan Doboca, owned the village of ercaia.

  The city council of Sibiu and its mayor viewed the imposing of Dracula's authority on Bistria with equal alarm and, like the Braov authorities, decided to champion the claims of yet another rival candidate to the Wallachian throne. The blow was all the more galling since it involved none other than Dracula's half-brother, also known as Vlad the Monk. (He was, as noted, the fruit of Dracula's relationship with Cluna, a Transylvanian woman of lowly estate.) Vlad the Monk was equally successful in drawing to his support a number of dissident boyars, including Vintil Florescu, who was later rewarded with high office for his support. Vlad the Monk established his headquarters in the town of Amla. Among his most prominent supporters were two wealthy German merchants. One was Peter Gereb de Weresmarth, Count of Roia, who had been elected mayor of Sibiu several times in Dracula's lifetime, along with his numerous sons. Peterman de Longo Campo, the other, was a former Wallachian of German origin who played a considerable political role in German imperial circles. For instance, he is known to have accompanied King Sigismund of Luxemburg at his coronation in Rome. Peterman also owned land within the duchy of Amla: the villages of Noul Ssesc, Cacova, and Vale. His son Jacob possessed Satul Nou. That all these villages along the Hîrtibaciu River were owned by Dracula's political foes provides the explanation for the terror experienced in that valley during the summer of 1457. In order to ingratiate himself with his German patrons, Vlad the Monk promised to enhance the generous commercial concessions granted by Dracula in 1456 by extending free trading rights to the ports at Brila and along the whole line of the Danube — a most profitable concession that the Saxons had never previously enjoyed.

  Yet a third candidate, who like Vlad the Monk ultimately became prince of the land (1481 and 1482-1495), was another member of the Dneti clan, Basarab Laiot, a son of Dan II. He was the most cultured of the candidates, holding a degree from a Braov institution of higher learning. Like the others, he made the usual promises to Romanian boyars and German merchants who cared to support his cause — though his appeal was not as strong as that of his relative Dan III or that of Vlad the Monk. He also eventually became prince of Wallachia following Dracula's assassination in 1476.

  Dracula decided to take up the challenge posed by these rival pro-German candidates by canceling the commercial concessions he had initially granted to the Saxon merchants in 1456 and engaging in a trade war on his own terms. At first he simply extended the “most favored nation clause,” formerly enjoyed exclusively by the Saxons, to the merchants of Wallachia and those of other nations such as the Genoese of Caffa and the Florentines, who frequently traveled through his country. The following year, Dracula obligated the German Saxons to unpack their wares in transit at various frontier points such as Rucr or at certain specific towns such as Tîrgovite, Tîrgsor, and Cîmpulung. In these centers Dracula gave Wallachian merchants priority in purchasing German goods, even below fair market value. The Wallachian merchants thus acquired the right to resell the Saxon goods within the country and throughout the Balkan peninsula, thus reducing the role of the Germans to wholesaling. This inevitably affected them financially. For a time the Germans ignored these measures and attempted to carry on the trade much as they had done before, while trying to elude Dracula's customs officers located at the border. Their attempts to avoid customs simply became another factor accounting for the fury and enormity of Dracula's terror raids on the German territories from 1458 to 1460.

  In fairness to Dracula it should be stated that he initially attempted to resolve both the commercial and political challenge through diplomatic means. Dracula sent two diplomats, the boyar Mihail and the head of his chancellery, a boyar called Priboi, to Sibiu in an attempt to persuade the mayor of Sibiu, Oswald, to give up his support of “a Wallachian priest [Vlad the Monk] who had established himself in his [that is, Dracula's] Duchy of Amla with the connivance of the authorities.” A similar request was made to Braov in regard to Dan III. Since neither city chose to respond, Dracula decided to teach the Germans an opening lesson in international good manners, which would serve as a fair warning. Without the formality of a declaration of war, a small mobile cavalry force, led by Dracula in person, struck with lightning speed across the mountains in the spring of 1458. He took the shortest route from his castle on the Arge, crossed the Lovite country, and thence followed the valley of the Olt River by way of the Cozia monastery (where the tomb of his grandfather, Prince Mircea, can be admired to this day). He then moved his force through the guarded pass
at Turnu Rou, the Red Tower (“red,” according to local legends, because it was permanently stained with the blood of the Turks who had repeatedly tried to take it). From there his men scaled the mountains following the valley of the Hîrtibaciu River, where the properties of Vlad the Monk's German patrons were located.

  The German manuscripts from the monasteries of Saint Gall and Lambach describe the fury of Dracula's attacks in “the land of the forests.” He destroyed the villages of Hosman, Caols, and Satul Nou, all possessions of the wealthy merchants or Romanian boyars who supported Vlad the Monk. From Amla Dracula's troops attacked ara Bîrsei, the region controlled by the supporters of Dan III, near Braov. He made the village of Bod a wasteland by killing all of the inhabitants except some prisoners, whom he took and later impaled at Tîrgovite. Dracula's one notable failure was his inability to capture the village of Codlea near Braov, according to the Lambach manuscript. Hearing of Dracula's atrocities, the villagers resisted valiantly. Dracula's captain had to report to the prince: “I cannot carry out your instructions, for the inhabitants are brave and well fortified, and they fight with great courage.” Dracula's response was to have this captain immediately arrested and impaled “in a horrible way.” At the town of Talme, Dracula had the city burned and the people “hacked to pieces like cabbage.” Dracula's ally Mihály Szilágy was unable to take the highly fortified city of Sibiu on October 9, 1458. Instead, Szilágy set up his headquarters in Sighioara, perhaps in the very building where Dracula had been born.

  After recalling his own Wallachian merchants home from Transylvania, Dracula had all the Saxon merchants who did not comply with the new rules for unloading their wares apprehended and impaled on the spot. Michael Beheim informs us that there were 600 such merchants from ara Bîrsei on their way to Brila with their goods. Dracula ordered most of their wares confiscated and had the merchants impaled. Others he assembled “in a huge cauldron which was adapted with holes so that their heads could peer out. He then ordered boiling water to be poured over the cauldron and boiled them alive.”

  A group of forty-one Saxon youths who had come to Wallachia on the pretext of learning the Romanian language were impaled, because Dracula thought that they had actually been sent as spies. “I do not wish them,” wrote Dracula defensively, “to gain knowledge so that they might spy in my land.” Indeed the German argument that “they were sent to Wallachia in order to learn Romanian” is quite unconvincing. Could they not have learned Romanian equally well in Transylvania, where the majority of the population spoke that language in their homes as fluently as did the Wallachians? It is more than likely that these youths were spies, instructed to foment discontent and subversion, to pave the way eventually for Dracula's replacement by one of his numerous exiled rivals. In the meantime, altered political circumstances that had taken place in Hungary facilitated some sort of a compromise. The sudden death of the young King Ladislas V Posthumus on December 9, 1457, at Prague, in rather mysterious circumstances (poison was suspected) caught everyone unaware and changed the political chess game. Mihály Szilágy had for some time backed his young nephew, Matthias, for the Hungarian throne. Matthias was elected Hungarian king by the diet on January 24, 1458, though he was not crowned. Szilágy hoped to continue to act as governor of Hungary and tutor, in view of Matthias's youth and inexperience. Szilágy, who had closely collaborated with Dracula since the Saxon revolt in Bistria, was now prepared to act as mediator in this dispute, hoping that Dracula's “destructive raids” and “warnings” had sufficiently chastened the German Saxons. This calculation was to prove correct. Like Szilágy, the king also wished to maintain friendly relations on his border, since he needed the support of the German cities, which continued to remain suspicious of Dracula in spite of the recent agreement. To further ease tensions, the king sent one of his cleverest diplomats, a great nobleman of Polish origin, to negotiate with Dracula. His name was Benedict de Boithor. When the diplomat arrived at Tîrgovite, the prince ordered him to sit with Dracula at his table in the castle, which was, not unexpectedly, surrounded by dead and dying victims impaled on stakes. In front of the main table Dracula had put a large stake gilded in gold. Dracula asked the ambassador, “Tell me, why did I place this stake here?” The ambassador was frightened, but he summoned up his courage and replied, “Lord, it would appear that some great man committed some crime at your expense and that you wish to reserve for him a more honorable death than that meted out to humbler men.” Dracula answered, “You spoke well. For you are the representative of the great king Matthias, and I have reserved this stake for you!” The ambassador contended, “Lord, if I have committed some crime which deserves the death penalty, do what you think is just, for you are an impartial judge, and it would not be you responsible for my death but I alone.” Dracula burst out laughing and said, “Had you not answered me properly, you would be on that stake now!” Instead, Dracula honored the man and gave him presents. The prince closed the audience with the words “You are fully worthy of being an ambassador of a great ruler, since you have mastered the art of speaking to another great sovereign. But do not send any ambassadors to me who have not been properly educated in the art of diplomacy.” Parallel negotiations with representatives of Braov continued for some time in the fall of 1458, though in the end Dracula placed under house arrest the 500 German representatives sent to Tîrgovite. On November 23, 1458, an accord was reached with Braov at Sighioara, where Szilágy resided. The Braovians agreed to surrender Dan III, and his boyar supporters were also to be extradited. The city would pay Szilágy 10,000 florins for war damages. In exchange Dracula would restore the commercial privileges of both towns. Dracula seemed to accept these terms, for on December 1, 1458, he wrote to the mayor of Braov: “Know that I shall keep the word ordered by my brother and Lord Mihály Szilágy. Your men can travel in our land freely to buy and sell without worry and without prejudice as if they were in their own country.”

  Mutual suspicions and bad faith on both sides contributed to make the agreement signed at Sighioara almost a dead letter from the start. On the one hand, the Germans had never seriously intended to surrender to Dracula their refugee candidates to the Wallachian throne, who included Dan III; on the other, new tensions arose between nephew Matthias and his uncle Mihály Szilágy, as the ambitious boy king, who had lingered

  in jail for so many years, was impatient to be his own master and soon planned to get rid of his cumbersome guardian. Such tensions were bound to have their effect on Dracula, who sided with Szilágy, the man with whom he had so often collaborated. Matthias, on the other hand, preferred to stake his future on the support of the German Saxon townships and brought no pressure upon them to comply with the terms of the earlier agreement.

  In the winter of 1459 Dracula organized one of his most devastating raids on Transylvanian soil, with the clear intention of trying to seize Dan III and his supporters. Advancing along the valley of the Prahova River, he delivered his first blows in the vicinity of Braov, where he burned villages, forts, and towns, burned the crops to deprive the population of food, and killed men, women, and children as he progressed. He focused his attention on the exposed Braovian suburbs, especially the Spenghi and Prund areas, which were located outside the walls of the fortress. This was the Romanian section of town, where Dan III and his dissident boyars resided. Under cover of darkness Dracula's men burst across the lightly fortified wooden palisade surrounding the section. He then proceeded to burn the whole suburb, including the old chapel of Saint Jacob, built in 1342, located at the foot of Tîmpa Hill; it was never restored. He took as many captives as he could find and impaled them “lengthwise and crosswise,” according to Beheim's narrative. Their bodies were strung on Tîmpa Hill above the chapel. Dracula meanwhile was seated at a table having his meal; he seemed to enjoy the gruesome scenario of his butchers cutting off the limbs of many of his victims. Beheim tells us the additional detail that the prince “dipped his bread in the blood of the victims,” since “watching human blood f
low gave him courage.” The stage was thus set for Dracula's later reputation as a blood drinker or vampire, and his subsequent fictional reincarnation as Count Dracula. As we will see, this episode at Tîmpa Hill did more to damage Dracula's reputation than any other act in his whole career. On this occasion Dracula also displayed the perverted black humor that is attributed to him in Russian narratives. A boyar attending the Braov festivity, apparently unable to endure any longer the smell of coagulating blood, had the misfortune to hold up his nose and express a gesture of revulsion. Dracula immediately ordered an unusually long stake prepared for the would-be victim and presented it to him with the cynical remark: “You live up there yonder, where the stench cannot reach you.” The boyar was immediately impaled.

  Dracula and his men then attacked the church of Saint Bartholomew, also located outside of the Braov walls. It still exists, the oldest Romanesque church in all Transylvania, dating from the thirteenth century. He “burned the church, together with its treasures, chalices, and priestly vestments.” Finally, he even dared to make a quick foray inside Braov, where he attempted to burn the famous Black Church. However, from his point of view, the entire expedition was a hollow failure: Dan III and his court, who had been forewarned, had gone into hiding on a boyar estate before the attack. They were not among those captured and impaled.

  Dracula's horrors and his wanton destruction of property provided the young Prince Dan III with a formidable weapon against Vlad. He appealed to the “honest and good citizens of the city of Braov and of ara Bîrsei… to all their brethren, their friends, their relatives and sons who had lost a dear one because of the actions of this lawless, cruel, and faithless tyrant responsible for torturing and killing people aimlessly and devastating whole areas” to support him. For good measure he added that “Dracula had sold himself to the Turks.” Although the first accusations were probably quite justified, Dracula had not at the time surrendered to the Turks. Indeed, 1459 was a particularly bad period in Wallachian-Turkish relations, for it was the first year that Dracula refused to pay the promised tribute. Regardless, this propaganda by Dan provided good material to be exploited at will by Dracula's future political enemies.