Transcript
John Hopkins (0:00)
Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals, like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication, and you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu it is June 1462. Sometime after midnight in a region called Wallachia, now part of Romania, a man approaches an army camp in a broad valley, its fires burning low. Slightly built and wearing Turkish robes and a turban, when this visitor is close enough, he calls out to greet the guards in their language, so unconcerned they wave him through. He walks rapidly, passing tethered horses and camels as he goes, until he notices one particularly large tent, lavishly decorated with Ottoman textiles. Satisfied that this is the sleeping quarters of the Sultan Mehmet, the man makes a mental note of its location, then slips beyond the camp's perimeter into the darkness, eventually reaching his own camp hidden in the forest. His return is greeted by cheers. Those around the fire make room for him as he sits and recounts what he has learned of this invading force. They listen in respectful silence, because this man is the Lord of Wallachia. His name is Vlad Tsepes, a title that strikes fear. It translates as Vlad the Impaler. Compared to the Ottoman army, his soldiers are a mere ragtag bunch of guerrilla fighters. They have donkeys rather than horses and camels. Instead of parading in shining metal armor like the sultan's troops, his men sit polishing their makeshift leather uniforms or sharpening homemade weapons. But even though they are outnumbered and outclassed, Vlad tells his soldiers to rest, because tomorrow they must fight. The next day passes, and once it is dark again, Vlad sets off. This time he is not alone, and he makes no attempt at subterfuge. Torches blazing, his men storm past the guards fanning out between tents, setting fires as they go. While the ambushed Ottomans raise the alarm, Vlad himself makes a beeline for the sultan's tent. He bursts into the opulent quarters, and though the men inside try to defend themselves, he fells them with efficient swings of his sword. He uses a foot to roll them over and sees he has made a mistake. The dead men are mere officials. The sultan is not here. He runs outside to join his vastly outnumbered men. The Valakians do what they can, slaughtering horses and camels before cutting their losses and fleeing into the night. Vlad's mission to assassinate the Sultan did not go to plan, and he knows Mehmet will come after him. So Vlad will prepare a gruesome surprise for his great enemy. They don't call him Vlad the Impaler for nothing. Days later, the Sultan and his army are approaching the Wallachian capital. When he reaches the outskirts of Targoviste, Mehmet senses that something is wrong. The roads are deserted, homes empty, market stalls abandoned. Up ahead, he spots a strange sight. It looks like a forest of low trees. As he draws closer, he notices a smell of death. His sleeve pressed across his face against the oppressive odor, the reality dawns. These are not trees at all, but a field of wooden stakes planted in the ground. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Each stake holds aloft a body men, women and children, skewered and held upright, Left to die slowly of their terrible injuries. Left as a warning. Horrified, the Sultan stops in his tracks, his army behind him. He came to seize the region of Wallachia, but its leader is a monster. Even a warrior like Mehmet has never seen anything like this. He signals his army to retreat, and gratefully, they get out of Wallachia while they can. The man who became known as Vlad the Impaler is one of history's greatest and most terrifying villains. Keeping a tight grip on the reins of power, using torture, terrorism and tough justice, he spread fear with spectacular displays of sadistic punishment. So much so that his exploits were published as horror stories. In his own time, Vlad was a warlord, but also an inspiration for oppressed people. He unified a region and resisted foreign invaders, making him a folk hero in his homeland. But Vlad is perhaps best known under his family name, Dracul, the inspiration for the most spine chilling tale of all time, Bram Stoker's novel about a vampire called Dracula. But what sparked Vlad's bloodthirsty obsession? How did he come to give his name to a vampire? And when it comes to medieval violence and tyranny, how did Vlad the Impaler keep raising the stakes? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Network. This is a short history of Vlad the impaler in the 15th century. Wallachia is a region of what is now Romania and includes its modern day capital, Bucharest. The province is hemmed in by the Carpathian Mountains, with the region of Transylvania to the north and lands controlled by the Ottomans to the south. It is an area rich in agriculture, but is also plagued by conflict. The region is trapped between opposing cultures, part of a buffer Zone between Europe and the East, Christians and Muslims, the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire. This tension makes Wallachian politics complicated. It's governed by a lord or warlord known as a voivoit. He maintains control in a kind of feudal system of wealthy landowners ruling over peasants who work the land. But the voivoit also has to appease belligerent neighbors and negotiate their constantly shifting allegiances. As such, the title of Voyvoid changes hands with alarming frequency and bloodshed in the 1430s. One candidate for Voyvoid is Vlad II, or Vlad the Elder, the father of the boy who will become known as Vlad the Impaler. Not much is known about the early life of Vlad the Elderly, but he is probably an illegitimate son of a previous Voyvoit. Vlad the Elder has an ally in a man named Sigmund. He's the king of Germany and Hungary, and later the Holy Roman Emperor, the Empire's political head of state. Sigmund founds a group known as the Order of the Dragon, a chivalric society dedicated to fighting enemies of Christianity. In 1431, he initiates Vlad the Elder into the Order. The honor furnishes Vlad with a new title, Vlad the Dragon, or in his own Wallachian language, Vlad Dracul Dacre Stoker is the great grandnephew of Bram Stoker, author of the horror story Dracula. He is also a historian and writer of modern Dracula novels.