The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

I.The Romanian Countries and Europe

in the XV-th century







Wallachia, whose ruler, Vlad the Impeller, was the best known in the west, presented itself in the XV-th century as a unique corner of Europe. Lying between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube, it was inhabited by Romanians, like the other two neighbor countries, Transylvania and Moldavia. Together they formed a defense wall of Europe against the expansion of the Ottoman Empire towards the center of the continent. Since the end of the XIV-th century, the Romanian Countries had been confronting with the powerful Ottoman Empire. The defense war of the three Romanian Countries against the Ottoman power has been representing a permanence of the medieval Romanian history, which couldn't be ignored by the western historians. We mention here the French medievalist Ferdinand Lot, who emphasized, among other things, the importance of the Romanians' resistance, who, through their sacrifice, encouraged the development of the western civilization. The great battles that saved the European civilization, in the XV-th century, took place at the Lower Danube. These battles gave the respite necessary for the rest of the continent to finish their fulfillment of Renaissance and the Reform. Protected from the great invasions, the western monarchies perfected their technology and firearms, which led to balance between Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-th century.

Taking place in the central and southeastern political context, dominated by the medieval kingdoms Hungary and Poland, the defense war against the Ottomans led by the Romanian Countries presented the characteristics of the late crusade. Under the aegis of papacy and with the participation of some western noblemen from France, Burgundy, the German States, the western medieval military structure confronted with the sultan's powerful army in the crusades at Nicopole, in 1396 and Varna, 1444.





The victory of the Ottoman Empire - the one of a centralized army with coherent tactics and strategies, against the personal value and the individualism of the western knights - was crushing.

Two years before Nicopole, Mircea the Old (1386-1418), the ruler of Wallachia, had won the battle of Rovine against the powerful sultan Baiazid. As long as Mircea the Old lived and ruled the country, the Ottoman power was stopped at the Danube. It was the first of a long succession of victories, which transformed the Romanian rulers into defenders of Christianity. This supreme European value, "Christianity", was invoked like a motto in the policy of the Romanian rulers in order to get help from the rest of Europe, from the papacy and from the western states. The Romanians' victories showed to the whole Europe that the Ottomans could be beaten. Unfortunately, they couldn't be crushed because of the huge military, human and economical potential of an empire that lay on two continents. The victories obtained by the Romanians, alone or sporadically helped by Hungary or Poland, determined the Turks to give up the idea of conquering the Romanian Countries, being content with their transformation into vassal states and with the acknowledgement of their autonomy and individuality. These ideas were registered in the Romanian-Ottoman agreements, named capitulations, which have been so often invoked by the Romanian intellectuals in the modern age. The fact that the first capitulations were signed during the reign of Vlad the Impeller isn't quite without importance. So, summarizing the essence of the Romanian-Ottoman military conflict during the XV-th century, the Italian humanist Fillipo Buonaccorsi Callimachus asserted: "The Romanians, after they repelled the weapons and the attempts of the Porte, concluded treaties, being not defeated, but victorious."

The Romanians still had many occasions to prove their merit as defenders of Europe. The Ottomans attacked continuously, wanting to rule the Danube, which, if the ottoman troops had penetrated deeply into the continent, would have been good means of transportation, upholding the army.





A long succession of brave rulers transmitted from generation to generation, from Mircea the Old to Vlad the Impeller, the mission of the Romanian nation. Among these rulers there was Vlad, son of Mircea the Old and the father of Vlad the Impeller. Remarkable on political level and worthy brother at arms in battle, Vlad was granted, at Nürnberg, in 1432, the order of the Dragon by the emperor of the Roman-German Empire, Sigismund of Luxemburg himself. The goal of this order, grounded by the German emperor, was the fight against the Christian heresies and against the Islam. The order had a reserved character. It was granted only to famous people, monarchs and important noblemen. The dragon, a mythological creature specific to the Asian culture, wasn't very well known in the European culture, but, in the Romanian folklore, it was correlated with the forces of darkness. So, the people called Vlad, the son of Mircea the Old, not the Dragon, but the Devil. He was known in the history as Vlad the Devil.

Once he returned into the Romanian Countries, Vlad the Devil gained power over the southern Transylvania, and, after that, he came to the fore in Wallachia, keeping a part of his possessions in Transylvania: the regions called Amlas and Fagaras. But the context in which this enthroning took place must be understood.

Like we said, Vlad was one of the sons of Mircea the Old, so he was a member of the ancient noble family of Basarab. But in this family, during the reign of Mircea the Old, a terrible conflict was born. This conflict lasted more than a century and it was upkeeped by the thirst for power. The ancient family of Basarab was divided into two branches: Draculesti and Danesti. The first ones were descendents of Mircea the Old and their name was derived from the title of Vlad the Devil (in Romanian: "the devil"="dracul"). The others were descendents of Dan I - brother of Mircea the Old (he was a prince of Wallachia too, between 1377 and 1386). The members of the two families succeeded alternatively to the throne of Wallachia, killing and persecuting each other.



But let's see what the documents dating from that age say about this conflict. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-1464), known as a pope under the name Pius II (1458-1464) said in his book, "The Cosmography": "Among the Wallachians in our times there were two factions, one of Dani and the other one of Draguli, but the members of the latter were weaker than the Dani and were oppressed by them in many ways, so they called the Turks to help and, supported by the Ottoman forces, they crushed the faction of Dani and near annihilated them. And the faction of Dani getting [got] help from Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara, who governed Hungary, [but] he didn't reinstal them, he gained glory and riches for himself and, like a man that extorted Dani's lands from the Turks, occupied them himself, keeping them as perpetual possessions of himself and of his descendents." We can notice the harsh fight between the two families, Dani (Danesti) and Draguli (Draculesti), that resort to external help for the annihilation of the rival family; Draculesti resort to the Ottoman sultan and Dani to the Hungarian governor, Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara, about whom we will tell more things in the following.

Meanwhile, on international political level, the emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg was dealing with the coordination, from an ample perspective, of the defense front of Europe. When Vlad the Devil came to the throne, "Sigismund of Luxemburg had already prepared an army formed by Hungarians, Poles, Czechs and Romanians from Transylvania and Banat, with whom he planned to stop the Ottoman offensive that was threatening the existence of the last Serbian despotate." The Christians won the victory, and, on this occasion, Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara (the one we have talked about in the quotation from Pope Pius II) made himself noticed. He became voivode of Transylvania in 1441 and continued his ascent until 1442, when he gains important victories against the Ottomans, victories that brought him esteem on a political level. Further on he led a battle, on organizational level, in this area, creating from the three Romanian Countries a powerful defense, establishing on the thrones of Wallachia and Moldavia rulers devoted to him and uniting them, at least concerning the strategical aims. It seems that, at a first stage, the ruler that Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara found on the throne of Wallachia, Vlad the Devil, suited him.



But, until that time, Vlad the Devil had had a hard reign. He had already confronted with the Ottoman urges. Two of his sons, the ones that would become the rulers of Wallachia Vlad the Impeller and Radu the Handsome, had been locked in the Ottoman fortress Egrigöz, as the chronicler Nesri describes. By doing this, the Ottomans were able to blackmail Vlad the Devil, telling him that if he didn't do what they wished, they would kill his sons. He returned to Wallachia after a short period of captivity. Here, despite the great dangers that he was exposing his family to, Vlad the Devil and his oldest son, Mircea, continued the fight against the Ottomans. So, he left aside his personal life, of a man, to dedicate himself to the noble purpose of protecting the gates of Europe. Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara liked this sacrifice and Vlad the Devil became one of his protégés. They participated together in the crusades in 1443 and 1444 and in the campaign from 1445, when the Romanians conquered the citadel Giurgiu with the help of a Burgundy fleet under the command of Walerand of Wawrin.

Meanwhile, the two captive sons of Vlad the Devil, Vlad - the future Impeller and Radu - the future Handsome, remained alive, because the Porte had other plans for them: to train them in such a way that, at the adequate time, they would become rulers of Wallachia loyal to the Ottoman Empire. But their father and their elder brother had a much worse fate. They were assassinated around 1446-1447. The identity of Vlad the Devil's assassins has been veiled in mystery. Some historical sources say that, in those years, Vlad the Devil had to conclude peace with the Ottomans. But, Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara was just preparing a new campaign against them and needed military assistance from Wallachia. So, an assumption regarding the death of Vlad the Devil is that he was killed by Iancu Corvin of Hunedoara, who, after that, established Vladislav-Dan, a member of the rival family of Danesti. Other historical sources assert that Vlad the Devil was killed by Vladislav-Dan himself, being known the terrible conflict, described earlier, between the families of the two rulers.



The death of the ruler, toghether with his oldest son, Mircea, took place at the end of 1447, because on the 4-th of December Iancu of Hunedoara emitted a document from Targoviste, "our citadel" as he named it, in which he entitled himself "voivode of the transalpine territories". The event marked the entering of Wallachia under the strict suzerainty of Hungary.

A few months later, Iancu of Hunedoara, governor of Hungary and voivode of Transylvania, proceeded in the same manner with Moldavia, installing a ruler faithful to his cause. The Romanian Countries were, in this way, united into a powerful front against the Ottomans. In the battle of Kosovopolje (17-th - 19-th of October 1448), the reunited armies of the Romanians from Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia, side by side with the armies of the Hungarian kingdom and of the Serbian despot Gheorghe Brancovici were fighting their last great offensive battle from the long succession of the Romanian-Ottoman confrontations in the XV-th century.

Probably, under these circumstances, connected to the preliminaries of the battle of Kossovopolje, while the ruler of Wallachia was drawn into the battles with the Turks, the sultan decided to help Vlad the Impeller to take over the throne. This act was fulfilled by the beys that ruled fortresses near the Danube among the boyars that were partisans of the Draculesti family. Taking advantage of the fact that Wallachia's army and ruler were far away from home and the weak internal forces couldn't oppose a powerful resistance, the Ottomans and the partisans of Draculesti family installed Vlad the Impeller as ruler.

So, the young ruler, aged only 18, was signing his first documents from Targoviste, the capital.

Returned in the van of the armies on the battlefield and having the support of the Moldavian horsemen, Vladislav-Dan took back his throne. The young prince Vlad begun his exile journey, accompanied by the Draculesti boyars and settled down in Brasov, the refuge of any claimant to the Wallachian throne.



Source:



http://library.thinkquest.org/C0125971/media/english/Story/story1b.htm