Vlad the Impaler Vlad III , Prince of Wallachia ( 1431 – 1476 ) , was a member of the House of Drăculești , a branch of the House of Basarab , also known by his patronymic name : Dracula . He was posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler ( Romanian : Vlad Țepeș ) , and was a three - time Voivode of Wallachia , ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462 , the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans . His father , Vlad II Dracul , was a member of the Order of the Dragon , which was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe . Vlad III is revered as a folk hero in Romania for his protection of the Romanian population both south and north of the Danube . A significant number of Romanian and Bulgarian common folk and remaining boyars ( nobles ) moved north of the Danube to Wallachia , recognized his leadership and settled there following his raids on the Ottomans . As the cognomen ' The Impaler ' suggests , his practice of impaling his enemies is central to his historical reputation . During his lifetime , his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad , to Germany and elsewhere in Europe . The total number of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands . The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker ' s 1897 novel " Dracula " was inspired by Vlad ' s patronymic . Name . During his life Vlad wrote his name in Latin documents as " Wladislaus Dragwlya , vaivoda partium Transalpinarum " ( 1475 ) . His Romanian patronymic " Dragwlya " ( or " Dragkwlya " ) " Dragulea , Dragolea , Drăculea " is a diminutive of the epithet " Dracul " carried by his father Vlad II , who in 1431 was inducted as a member of the Order of the Dragon , a chivalric order founded by Sigismund of Hungary in 1408 . " Dracul " is the Romanian definite form , the " - ul " being the suffixal definite article ( deriving from Latin " ille " ) . The noun " drac " " dragon " itself continues Latin " draco " . Thus , Dracula literally means " Son of the Dragon " . In Modern Romanian , the word " drac " has adopted the meaning of " devil " ( the term for " dragon " now being " balaur " or " dragon " ) . This has led to misinterpretations of Vlad ' s epithet as characterizing him as " devilish " . Vlad ' s moniker of " Țepeș " ( " Impaler " ) identifies his favourite method of execution . It was attached to his name posthumously , in ca . 1550 . Before this , however , he was known as " Kazikli Bey " ( The Impaler Lord ) by the Ottoman Empire after their armies encountered his " forests " of impalement victims . Family . Early life . Vlad was born in Sighișoara , Transylvania , Kingdom of Hungary ( today part of Romania ) , in the winter of 1431 to Vlad II Dracul , future voivode of Wallachia . Vlad ' s father was the son of the celebrated Voivode Mircea the Elder . His mother is unknown , though at the time his " father " is believed to have been married to Princess Cneajna of Moldavia ( eldest daughter of Alexander " the Good " , Prince of Moldavia and aunt to Stephen the Great of Moldavia ) but to also keep a number of mistresses . He had two older half - brothers , Mircea II and Vlad Călugărul , and a younger brother , Radu III the Handsome . In the year of his birth , Vlad ' s father , known under the nickname " Dracul " , had traveled to Nuremberg where he had been vested into the Order of the Dragon . Vlad and Radu spent their early formative years in Sighișoara . During the first reign of their father , Vlad II Dracul , the Voivode brought his young sons to Târgoviște , the capital of Wallachia at that time . The Byzantine chancellor Mikhail Doukas showed that , at Târgoviște , the sons of boyars and ruling princes were well - educated by Romanian or Greek scholars commissioned from Constantinople . Vlad is believed to have learned combat skills , geography , mathematics , science , languages ( Old Church Slavonic , German , Latin ) , and the classical arts and philosophy . Life in Edirne . In 1436 , Vlad II Dracul ascended the throne of Wallachia . He was ousted in 1442 by rival factions in league with Hungary , but secured Ottoman support for his return by agreeing to pay the Tribute to the Sultan . Vlad II also sent his two legitimate sons , Vlad and Radu cel Frumos , to the Ottoman court , to serve as hostages of his loyalty . After the death of Vlad II Dracul , Radu cel Frumos converted to Islam and entered the service of the Ottoman court . During his years as hostage , Vlad was educated in logic , the Quran and the Turkish language and works of literature . He would speak this language fluently in his later years . He and his brother were also trained in warfare and riding horses . The boys ' father , Vlad Dracul , was awarded the support of the Ottomans and returned to Wallachia and took back his throne from Basarab II and some unfaithful Boyars . Genealogy . In October 2011 , Prince Charles publicly claimed that he is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler . The claim accompanied his announcement of a pledge to help conserve the forested areas of Transylvania . Radu Florescu documented on page 193 of his book , " Dracula : Prince of Many Faces " that the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I granted Ladislas Dracula and his brother John recognition as Dracula ' s direct descendants : based on their documentation , the Emperor granted them letters patent ( a patent of nobility ) on January 20 , 1535 , in which their descent is described and also specific mention is made in the patent of " the ancient insignia of Ladislas ' s family " as being the same as that of the Bathory family — i . e . , gules ( red ) a sword covering three wolf teeth . First reign and exile . In December 1447 , boyars in league with the Hungarian regent John Hunyadi rebelled against Vlad II Dracul and killed him in the marshes near Bălteni . Mircea II of Wallachia , Dracul ' s eldest son and heir , was blinded and buried alive at Târgoviște . To prevent Wallachia from falling into the Hungarian fold , the Ottomans invaded Wallachia and put young Vlad III on the throne . However , this rule was short - lived as Hunyadi himself now invaded Wallachia and restored his ally Vladislav II , of the Dănești clan , to the throne . Vlad fled to Moldavia , where he lived under the protection of his uncle , Bogdan II . In October 1451 , Bogdan was assassinated and Vlad fled to Hungary . Impressed by Vlad ' s vast knowledge of the mindset and inner workings of the Ottoman Empire as well as his hatred of the new sultan Mehmed II , Hunyadi reconciled with his former rival and made him his advisor . After the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453 , Ottoman influence began to spread from this base through the Carpathians , threatening mainland Europe , and by 1481 conquering the entire Balkans peninsula . Vlad ' s rule thus falls entirely within the three decades of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans . In 1456 , three years after the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople , they threatened Hungary by besieging Belgrade . Hunyadi began a concerted counter - attack in Serbia : while he himself moved into Serbia and relieved the siege ( before dying of the plague ) , Vlad led his own contingent into Wallachia , reconquered his native land and killed Vladislav II in hand - to - hand combat . Second reign . Internal policy . Vlad found Wallachia in a wretched state : constant war had resulted in rampant crime , falling agricultural production , and the virtual disappearance of trade . Regarding a stable economy essential to resisting external enemies , he used severe methods to restore order and prosperity . Vlad had three aims for Wallachia : to strengthen the country ' s economy , its defense , and his own political power . He took measures to help the peasants ' well - being by building new villages and raising agricultural output . He understood the importance of trade for the development of Wallachia . He helped the Wallachian merchants by limiting foreign merchant trade to three market towns : Târgșor , Câmpulung and Târgoviște . Vlad considered the boyars the chief cause of the constant strife as well as of the death of his father and brother . To secure his rule he had many leading nobles killed . He also gave positions in his council which had traditionally belonged to the greatest boyars to persons of obscure or foreign origin who would be loyal to him alone . For lower offices , Vlad preferred knights and free peasants to boyars . In his aim of fixing up Wallachia , Vlad issued new laws punishing thieves . Vlad treated the boyars with the same harshness , believing them guilty of weakening Wallachia through their personal struggles for power . The army was also strengthened . He had a small personal guard , mostly made of mercenaries , who were rewarded with loot and promotions . He also established a militia or ‘ lesser army ’ made up of peasants called to fight whenever war came . Vlad Dracula built a church at Târgșor ( allegedly in the memory of his father and older brother who were killed nearby ) , and he contributed with money to the Snagov Monastery . Raids into Transylvania . Since the Wallachian nobility was linked to the Transylvanian Saxons , Vlad also acted against them by eliminating their trade privileges and raiding their cities . In 1459 , he had several Saxon settlers of Brașov ( Kronstadt ) impaled . War with the Ottomans . In 1459 , Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans , at the Congress of Mantua . In this crusade , the main role was to be played by Matthias Corvinus , son of John Hunyadi ( János Hunyadi ) , the King of Hungary . To this effect , Matthias Corvinus received from the Pope 40 , 000 golden coins , an amount that was thought to be enough to gather an army of 12 , 000 men and purchase 10 Danube warships . In this context , Vlad allied himself with Matthias Corvinus , with the hope of keeping the Ottomans out of the country ( Wallachia was claimed as a part of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed II ) . Later that year , in 1459 , Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay a delayed tribute of 10 , 000 ducats and 500 recruits into the Ottoman forces . Vlad refused , because if he had paid the ' tribute ' , as the tax was called at the time , it would have meant a public acceptance of Wallachia as part of the Ottoman Empire . Vlad , just like most of his predecessors and successors , had as a primary goal to keep Wallachia as independent as possible . Vlad had the Turkish envoys killed on the pretext that they had refused to raise their " hats " to him , by nailing their turban s to their heads . Meanwhile , the Sultan received intelligence reports that revealed Vlad ' s domination of the Danube . He sent the Bey of Nicopolis , Hamza Pasha , to make peace and , if necessary , eliminate Vlad III . Vlad Țepeș planned to set an ambush . Hamza Pasha , the Bey of Nicopolis , brought with him 1000 cavalry and when passing through a narrow pass north of Giurgiu , Vlad launched a surprise attack . The Wallachians had the Turks surrounded and defeated . The Turks ' plans were thwarted and almost all of them caught and impaled , with Hamza Pasha impaled on the highest stake to show his rank . In the winter of 1462 , Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the entire Bulgarian land in the area between Serbia and the Black Sea . Disguising himself as a Turkish Sipahi and utilizing the fluent Turkish he had learned as a hostage , he infiltrated and destroyed Ottoman camps . In a letter to Corvinus dated 2 February , he wrote : In response to this , Sultan Mehmed II raised an army of around 60 , 000 troops and 30 , 000 irregulars , and in spring of 1462 headed towards Wallachia . Commanding at best only 30 , 000 to 40 , 000 men ( depending of the source ) , Vlad was unable to stop the Ottomans from crossing the Danube on June 4 , 1462 and entering Wallachia . He constantly organized small attacks and ambushes on the Turks , such as The Night Attack when 15 , 000 Turks were killed . This infuriated Mehmed II , who then crossed the Danube . With the exception of some Turkish references all the other chronicles at the time that mention the 1462 campaign state that the Sultan was defeated . Apparently , the Turks retreated in such a hurry that by July 11 , 1462 the Sultan was already in Adrianopolis . According to the Byzantine historian Chalcocondil , Radu , brother of Vlad III and ingratiate of the Sultan , was left behind in Targoviste with the hope that he would be able to gather an anti - Vlad clique that would ultimately get rid of Vlad as Voivode of Wallachia and crown Radu as the new puppet ruler . Vlad the Impaler ' s attack was celebrated by the Saxon cities of Transylvania , the Italian states and the Pope . A Venetian envoy , upon hearing about the news at the court of Corvinus on 4 March , expressed great joy and said that the whole of Christianity should celebrate Vlad Țepeș ' s successful campaign . The Genoese from Caffa also thanked Vlad , for his campaign had saved them from an attack of some 300 ships that the sultan planned to send against them . Defeat . Vlad ' s younger brother Radu cel Frumos and his Janissary battalions were given the task of leading the Ottoman Empire to victory at all expense by Sultan Mehmet II . After the Sipahi s ' incursions failed to subdue Vlad , the few remaining Sipahi were killed in a night raid by Vlad III in 1462 . However , as the war raged on , Radu and his formidable Janissary battalions were well supplied with a steady flow of gunpowder and dinar s ; this allowed them to push deeper into the realm of Vlad III . Radu and his well - equipped forces finally besieged Poenari Castle , the famed lair of Vlad III . After his difficult victory Radu was given the title " Bey of Wallachia " by Sultan Mehmed II . Vlad III ' s defeat at Poenari was due in part to the fact that the Boyars , who had been alienated by Vlad ' s policy of undermining their authority , had joined Radu under the assurance that they would regain their privileges . They may have also believed that Ottoman protection was better than Hungarian . It was said as well that Radu ( through his spies or traitors ) found the place where some Boyars ' families were hidden during the war ( probably some forests around Snagov ) and blackmailed them to come to his side . By 8 September , Vlad had won another three victories , but continuous war had left him without any money and he could no longer pay his mercenaries . Vlad traveled to Hungary to ask for help from his former ally , Matthias Corvinus . Instead of receiving help , he found himself arrested and thrown into the dungeon for high treason . Corvinus , not planning to get involved in a war after having spent the Papal money meant for it on personal expenses , forged a letter from Vlad III to the Ottomans where he supposedly proposed a peace with them , to give an explanation for the Pope and a reason to abandon the war and return to his capital . Captivity in Hungary . Vlad was imprisoned at Oratia , a fortress located at Podu Dâmboviței Bridge . A period of imprisonment in Visegrád near Buda followed , where the Wallachian prince was held for 10 years . Then he was imprisoned in Buda . The exact length of Vlad ' s period of captivity is open to some debate , though indications are that it was from 1462 until 1474 . Diplomatic correspondence from Buda seems to indicate that the period of Vlad ' s effective confinement was relatively short . Radu ' s openly pro - Ottoman policy as voivode probably contributed to Vlad ' s rehabilitation . Moreover , Ștefan cel Mare , Voivode of Moldavia and relative of Vlad intervened on his behalf to be released from prison as the Ottoman pressure on the territories north of the Danube was increasing . Third reign and death . After Radu ' s sudden death in 1475 , Vlad III declared his third reign in 26 November 1476 . Vlad began preparations for the reconquest of Wallachia in 1476 with Hungarian support . Vlad ' s third reign had lasted little more than two months when he was assassinated . The exact date of his death is unknown , presumably the end of December 1476 , but it is known that he was dead by 10 January 1477 . The exact location of his death is also unknown , but it would have been somewhere along the road between Bucharest and Giurgiu . Vlad ' s head was taken to Constantinople as a trophy , and his body was buried unceremoniously by his rival , Basarab Laiota , possibly at Comana , a monastery founded by Vlad in 1461 . The Comana monastery was demolished and rebuilt from scratch in 1589 . In the 19th century , Romanian historians cited a " tradition " , apparently without any kind of support in documentary evidence , that Vlad was buried at Snagov , an island monastery located near Bucharest . To support this theory , the so - called " Cantacuzino Chronicle " was cited , which cites Vlad as the founder of this monastery . But as early as 1855 , Alexandru Odobescu had established that this is impossible as the monastery had been in existence before 1438 . Since excavations carried out by Dinu V Rosetti in June – October 1933 , it has become clear that Snagov monastery was founded during the later 14th century , well before the time of Vlad III . The 1933 excavation also established that there was no tomb below the supposed " unmarked tombstone " of Vlad in the monastery church . Rosetti ( 1935 ) reported that " Under the tombstone attributed to Vlad there was no tomb . Only many bones and jaws of horses . " In the 1970s , speculative attribution of an anonymous tomb found elsewhere in the church to Vlad Țepeș was published by Simion Saveanu , a journalist who wrote a series of articles on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Vlad ' s death . Most Romanian historians today favor the Comana monastery as the final resting place for Vlad Țepeș . Legacy . Reputation for cruelty . Even during his lifetime , Vlad III Țepeș became famous as a tyrant taking sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing . He is shown in crypto - portraits made during his lifetime in the role of cruel rulers or executioners . After Vlad ' s death , his cruel deeds were reported with macabre gusto in popular pamphlets in Germany , reprinted from the 1480s until the 1560s , and to a lesser extent in Tsarist Russia . As an example of how Vlad Țepeș soon became iconic for all horrors unimaginable , the following pamphlet from 1521 pours out putative incidents like this one : Estimates of the number of his victims range from 40 , 000 to 100 , 000 . According to the German stories the number of victims he had killed was at least 80 , 000 . In addition to the 80 , 000 victims mentioned he also had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground . Impalement was Vlad ' s preferred method of torture and execution . Several woodcuts from German pamphlets of the late 15th and early 16th centuries show Vlad feasting in a forest of stakes and their grisly burdens outside Brașov , while a nearby executioner cuts apart other victims . It was reported that an invading Ottoman army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses on the banks of the Danube . It has also been said that in 1462 Mehmed II , the conqueror of Constantinople , a man noted for his own psychological warfare tactics and the impalement of subjugated peoples in the Ottoman Empire , returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20 , 000 impaled corpses outside Vlad ' s capital of Târgoviște . Allegedly , Vlad ' s reputation for cruelty was actively promoted by Matthias Corvinus , who tarnished Vlad ’ s reputation and credibility for a political reason : as an explanation for why he had not helped Vlad fight the Ottomans in 1462 , for which purpose he had received money from most Catholic states in Europe . Matthias employed the charges of Southeastern Transylvania , and produced fake letters of high treason , written on 7 November 1462 . German sources . The German stories circulated first in manuscript form in the late 15th century and the first manuscript was probably written in 1462 before Vlad ' s arrest . The text was later printed in Germany and had a major impact on the general public , becoming a best - seller of its time with numerous later editions adding to and altering the original text . In addition to the manuscripts and pamphlets the German version of the stories can be found in the poem of Michael Beheim . The poem called " " Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei " " ( " Story of a Madman Named Dracula of Wallachia " ) was written and performed at the court of Frederick III , Holy Roman Emperor during the winter of 1463 . To this day four manuscripts and 13 pamphlets have been found , as well as the poem by Michel Beheim . The surviving manuscripts date from the last quarter of the 15th century to the year 1500 and the found pamphlets date from 1488 to 1559 – 1568 . Eight of the pamphlets are incunabula , meaning that they were printed before 1501 . The German stories about Vlad the Impaler consist of 46 short episodes , although none of the manuscripts , pamphlets or the poem of Beheim contain all 46 stories . All of them begin with the story of the old governor , John Hunyadi , having Vlad ' s father killed , and how Vlad and his brother renounced their old religion and swore to protect and uphold the Christian faith . After this , the order and titles of the stories differ by manuscript and pamphlet editions . Russian sources . The Russian or the Slavic version of the stories about Vlad the Impaler called " Skazanie o Drakule voevode " ( " The Tale of Warlord Dracula " ) is thought to have been written sometime between 1481 and 1486 . Copies were made from the 15th century to the 18th century , of which some twenty - two extant manuscripts survive in Russian archives . The oldest one , from 1490 , ends as follows : " First written in the year 6994 of the Byzantine calendar ( 1486 ) , on 13 February ; then transcribed by me , the sinner Efrosin , in the year 6998 ( 1490 ) , on 28 January " . The Tales of Prince Dracula is neither chronological nor consistent , but mostly a collection of anecdotes of literary and historical value concerning Vlad Țepeș . There are 19 anecdotes in The Tales of Prince Dracula which are longer and more constructed than the German stories . The Tales can be divided into two sections : The first 13 episodes are non - chronological events most likely closer to the original folkloric oral tradition about Vlad . The last six episodes are thought to have been written by a scholar who collected them , because they are chronological and seem to be more structured . The stories begin with a short introduction and the anecdote about the nailing of hats to ambassadors ' heads . They end with Vlad ' s death and information about his family . Of the 19 anecdotes there are ten that have similarities to the German stories . Although there are similarities between the Russian and the German stories about Vlad , there is a clear distinction in the attitude towards him . The Russian stories tend to portray him in a more positive light : he is depicted as a great ruler , a brave soldier and a just sovereign . Stories of atrocities tend to seem to be justified as the actions of a strong ruler . Of the 19 anecdotes , only four seem to have exaggerated violence . . Some elements of the anecdotes were later added to Russian stories about Ivan the Terrible of Russia . The nationality and identity of the original writer of the anecdotes Dracula is disputed . The two most plausible explanations are that the writer was either a Romanian priest or a monk from Transylvania , or a Romanian or Moldavian from the court of Stephen the Great in Moldavia . One theory claims the writer was a Russian diplomat named Fyodor Kuritsyn . . Ambras Castle portrait . A contemporary portrait of Vlad III , rediscovered by Romanian historians in the late 19th century , had been featured in the gallery of horrors at Innsbruck ' s Ambras Castle . This original has been lost to history , but a larger copy , painted anonymously in the first half of the 16th century , now hangs in the same gallery . This copy , unlike the crypto - portraits contemporary with Vlad III , seems to have given him a Habsburg lip . Popular culture . Romanian patriotism . Romanian and Bulgarian documents from 1481 onwards portray Vlad as a hero , a true leader , who used harsh yet fair methods to reclaim the country from the corrupt and rich boyars . Moreover , all his military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Empire which explicitly wanted to conquer Wallachia . Excerpt from " The Slavonic Tales " : An Italian writer , Michael Bocignoli from Ragusa , in his writings from 1524 , refers to Vlad Țepeș as : In the " Letopisețul cantacuzinesc " ( " Cantacuzino chronicle " ) , a historic account written around 1688 by Stoica Ludescu of the Cantacuzino family , Vlad orders the boyars to build the fortress of Poenari with their own bare hands . Later in the document , Ludescu refers to the ( re ) crowning of Vlad as a happy event : Around 1785 , Ioan Budai - Deleanu , a Romanian writer , and renowned historian , wrote a Romanian epic heroic poem , " " Țiganiada " " , in which prince Vlad Țepeș stars as a fierce warrior fighting the Ottomans . Later , in 1881 , Mihai Eminescu , one of the greatest Romanian poets , in " " Letter 3 " " , popularizes Vlad ' s image in modern Romanian patriotism , having him stand as a figure to contrast with presumed social decay under the Phanariotes and the political scene of the 19th century . The poem even suggests that Vlad ' s violent methods be applied as a cure . In the final lyrics , the poet makes a call to Vlad Țepeș ( i . e . Dracula ) to come , to sort the contemporaries into two teams : the mad and the wicked and then set fire to the prison and to the madhouse . In contrast , documents of Germanic , Saxon , and Hungarian origin portray Vlad as a tyrant , a monster so cruel that he needs to be stopped . For example , Johan Christian Engel characterizes Vlad as " a cruel tyrant and a monster of humankind " . Several authors and historians believe that this may be the result of a bad image campaign initiated by the Transylvanian Saxons who were actively persecuted during Vlad ' s reign and later maintained and spread by Matthias Corvinus . It is conceivable that these actions were not beyond the Hungarian King since he had already framed Vlad Țepeș by producing a forged letter to incriminate Vlad of coalition with the Turks ; however , there is incontestable evidence , both in Romanian and foreign documents , including Vlad ' s own letters , that he killed tens of thousands of people in horrible ways . Bram Stoker . The connection of the name " Dracula " with vampirism was made by Bram Stoker , who probably found the name of his Count Dracula character in William Wilkinson ' s book , " An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia : with various Political Observations Relating to Them " . It is known that Stoker made notes about this book . It is also suggested that Stoker may have been made aware of the reputation of Vlad through an acquaintance of his , Hungarian professor Ármin Vámbéry from Budapest . The fact that character Dr . Abraham Van Helsing states in the 1897 novel that the source of his knowledge about Count Dracula is his friend Arminius appears to support this hypothesis , although there is no specific evidence that Stoker and Vambéry ever discussed Wallachian history . Referring to a letter from his friend Arminius , van Helsing comments : This encourages the reader to identify the Vampire Count with the Voivode Dracula first mentioned by him , the one betrayed by his own brother : Vlad III Dracula betrayed by his brother Radu the Handsome .