|
|
The Historical Dracula
Chapter IV: Atrocities
 More
than anything else the historical Dracula is known for his inhuman
cruelty . Impalement was Dracula's preferred method of torture and
execution. Impalement was and is one of the most gruesome ways of
dying imaginable. Dracula usually had a horse attached to each of
the victim's legs and a sharpened stake was gradually forced into
the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken
that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too
rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body
through the buttocks and was often forced through the body until it
emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where
victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the
abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced
through their mothers' chests. The records indicate that victims
were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake.
Death by impalement was slow and painful. Victims sometimes endured
for hours or days. Dracula often had the stakes arranged in various
geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring of concentric
circles in the outskirts of the city that was his target. The height
of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The decaying corpses
were often left up for months. It was once reported that an invading
Turkish army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of
rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the Danube. In 1461 Mohammed
II, the conqueror of Constantinople, a man not noted for his
squeamishness, returned to Constantinople after being sickened by
the sight of twenty thousand impaled corpses rotting outside of
Dracula's capital of
Tirgoviste. The warrior sultan turned command
of the campaign against Dracula over to subordinates and returned to
Constantinople.
Thousands were often impaled at a single time. Ten thousand were
impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu (where Dracula had once
lived) in 1460. In 1459, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Dracula had
thirty thousand of the merchants and boyars of the Transylvanian
city of
Brasov impaled. One of the most famous woodcuts of the
period shows Dracula feasting amongst a forest of stakes and their
grisly burdens outside
Brasov while a nearby executioner cuts apart
other victims. Impalement was Dracula's favorite but by no means his
only method of torture. The list of tortures employed by this cruel
prince reads like an inventory of hell's tools: nails in heads,
cutting off of limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off
of noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the
case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to
wild animals and boiling alive.
No one was immune to Dracula's attentions. His victims included
women and children, peasants and great lords, ambassadors from
foreign powers and merchants. However, the vast majority of his
victims came from the merchants and boyars of
Transylvania and his
own
Wallachia. Many have attempted to justify Dracula's actions on
the basis nascent nationalism and political necessity. Many of the
merchants in
Transylvania and
Wallachia were Saxons who were seen as
parasites, preying upon the Romanian natives of
Wallachia, while the
boyars had proven their disloyalty time and time again. Dracula's
own father and older brother were murdered by unfaithful boyars.
However, many of Dracula's victims were Wallachians and few deny
that he derived a perverted pleasure from his actions.
Dracula began his reign of terror almost as soon as he came to
power. His first significant act of cruelty may have been motivated
by a desire of revenge as well as a need to solidify his power.
Early in his main reign he gave a feast for his boyars and their
families to celebrate Easter. Dracula was well aware that many of
these same nobles were part of the conspiracy that led to his
father's assassination and the burying alive of his elder brother,
Mircea. Many had also played a role in the overthrow of numerous
Wallachian princes. During the feast Dracula asked his noble guests
how many princes had ruled during their life times. All of the
nobles present had out lived several princes. One answered that at
least thirty princes had held the throne during his life. None had
seen less than seven reigns. Dracula immediately had all the
assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars and their families were
impaled on the spot. The younger and healthier nobles and their
families were marched north from
Tirgoviste to the ruins of a castle
in the mountains above the Arges River. Dracula was determined to
rebuild this ancient fortress as his own stronghold and refuge. The
enslaved boyars and their families were forced to labor for months
rebuilding the old castle with materials from another nearby ruin.
According to the reports they labored until the clothes fell off
their bodies and then were forced to continue working naked. Very
few of the old gentry survived the ordeal of building Castle
Dracula.
Throughout his reign Dracula systematically eradicated the old boyar
class of
Wallachia. The old boyars had repeatedly undermined the
power of the prince during previous reigns and had been responsible
for the violent overthrow of several princes. Apparently Dracula was
determined that his own power be on a modern and thoroughly secure
footing. In the place of the executed boyars Dracula promoted new
men from among the free peasantry and the middle class; men who
would be loyal only to their prince. Many of Dracula's acts of
cruelty can be interpreted as efforts to strengthen and modernize
the central government at the expense of feudal powers of the
nobility and great towns.
Dracula was also constantly on guard against the adherents of the
Danesti clan. Some of his raids into Transylvania may have been
efforts to capture would-be princes of the Danesti. Several members
of the Danesti clan died at Dracula's hands. Vladislav II was
murdered soon after Dracula came to power in 1456. Another Danesti
prince was captured during one of Dracula's forays into
Transylvania. Thousands of the citizens of the town that had
sheltered his rival were impaled by Dracula. The captured Danesti
prince was forced to read his own funeral oration while kneeling
before an open grave before his execution.
Dracula's atrocities against the people of
Wallachia were usually
attempts to enforce his own moral code upon his country. He appears
to have been particularly concerned with female chastity. Maidens
who lost their virginity, adulterous wives and unchaste widows were
all targets of Dracula's cruelty. Such women often had their sexual
organs cut out or their breasts cut off. They were also often
impaled through the vagina on red-hot stakes that were forced
through the body until they emerged from the mouth. One report tells
of the execution of an unfaithful wife. Dracula had the woman's
breasts cut off, then she was skinned and impaled in a square in
Tirgoviste with her skin lying on a nearby table. Dracula also
insisted that his people be honest and hard working. Merchants who
cheated their customers were likely to find themselves mounted on a
stake beside common thieves.
>>
Chapter V: Anecdotal
Evidence
All Text Rights Reserved.
"The Historical Dracula" is Copyright © Ray Porter, 1992
|
|
|
