This Article Has Violent Descriptions, Not Intended For Young Readers
Contrary to popular belief, there was a real Dracula, who was known for his Evil acts while he reigned over his kingdom. His full name was Vlad III Draculea (which is transliterated into Dracula), son of Vlad II Draculea, born in Transylvania in 1431, and dying in 1476. He had three main reigns, his first in 1448, his second (the longest) from 1456-1462, and finally in 1476. He spent most of his time in Tirgoviste and Bucharest. Dracula built many fortresses, monasteries, and walls, the most famous of which was Castle Dracula, which was placed in a remote, isolated area. Many consider Dracula to be the ideal Machiavelli prince, in that he did anything to maintain his power. One thing he is famous for is holding off the Ottoman Empire from taking over Western Europe, but he is even more so famous for his atrocious acts of cruelty.
In the beginning of his reign, Dracula insisted upon reducing the power of boyars (noble lords), and did so by killing many of them. He gathered all the boyars and killed the weak by impalement, and used the others to build a fortress for him. Since somebody needed to replace them, he ingeniously gave peasants their position, thus making them grateful and loyal to him. While Dracula didn't have anything against peasants or merchants, he hated thieves, beggars (who he considered worse than thieves), sick, lazy, and old people. On one occasion he gathered all of them into one building, and then set it on fire and burned them alive, ignoring their screams of agony.
Dracula was interested in the Church, at least initially. He built many monasteries and Churches, and donated money and land to them. He also followed their customs and rituals, and was Romanian Orthodox. Per haps a reason why he was so involved with the Church was that he used it to atone for, and most of the time justify, his Evil acts. However, he eventually became suspicious of the Church, as he saw them as people who could elude his jurisdiction. The Church appeared to him as an obstacle, something more powerful than him. He burned down many monasteries, including some he built, and impaled clergy and monks.
All of this was done to preserve his power. One of the main reasons Dracula was so supportive of peasants was because they were 90% of the population, and Dracula needed their brawn and support for his empire to thrive. He founded new villages and reduced feudal dues (taxes) so that they would be more supportive of him. To defend them, he built fortresses around these villages so the people would have somewhere to go in case of an attack or other crisis. However, as was stated, he had no tolerance for the incompetent and lazy, and had no problem eliminating them. He saw this as a way to protect his kingdom and keep it pure. He would take some people, like thieving gypsies, and instead of killing them, enlist them in his gypsy army, so they could be of some use. Dracula didn't trust merchants much, and he tested them multiple times for trickery, and if they failed, they were killed. But for the honest ones, he made sure they were secure and safe, by protecting their trade routes.
Dracula maintained order in his kingdom through very harsh laws. The things he did would stop any person from even thinking of committing a crime.
WARNING: Graphic Description Immediately Follows
Dracula's methods were cruel but effective, and while some of the laws were fair, others weren't. For example, if a wife had an affair and was married, her sexual organs were cut off, w hich was then followed by her being skinned and put into the public square, while her skin hung from a pole. The same punishment was applied if a woman lost her virginity and was not married, or if a widow was unchaste. Another punishment, usually for lesser offenses, was the removal of a woman's nipples. According to a folk tale, on one occasion he had a red hot iron stake shoved up a woman's vagina until it exited through her mouth. She was tied to a pole in the public square and left there as her skin fell from her body. Another tale is that he boiled a gypsy in a pot of boiling water (although that was not an isolated incident), skinned her, and forced fellow gypsies to eat her.
His most famous punishment was impalement. In his courtyard and the forest surrounding it were hundreds of stakes, rounded in such a way to induce maximum pain. The stake was inserted through the anus and it exited out the mouth, although sometimes it was inserted through the stomach or upp er chest. He was fond of medieval torture, attaching horses to people's arms and legs, crushing people under wheels, and covering people in food and unleashing vicious animals upon them. He also exposed people to the elements, releasing them into harsh weather with no way of escape. Nobody could escape his violence; in fact, babies were impaled sometimes on the same stakes their mothers were. Another form of torture was the removal of limbs, noses, and ears by cutting. Besides how he killed people was how many people he killed, one man said a minimum of 40,000, maximum of 100,000, although a more realistic number is 20,000. While that is low by today's standards, it was extremely high back then, especially since Dracula killed that many in such a short period of time.
Considering the things that Vlad III (remember, that is his first name) did, it is not surprising that Bram Stoker named the vampire in his book, as well as the book itself, Dracula.
The author stud ies history and reads in his free time. He owns http://www.w4t3r.com, which hosts many very funny stories.
Author:: Justin Kander
Keywords:: Dracula, Evil
Post by History of the Computer | Computer safety tips
No comments:
Post a Comment