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25 Facts About Vlad Tepes the Impaler
Updated on March 29, 2018
Thomas Swan
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Thomas Swan has a PhD in experimental psychology. He specializes in the cognitive science of religion.
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A 1560 painting of Vlad the Impaler. It is allegedly a copy of an original. | Source
Vlad the Impaler was a 15th century Prince of Wallachia who lived during a time of Ottoman (Muslim) expansion into Europe. He went by many names including Vlad Tepes, Vlad III, and Vlad Dracula, with the latter serving as inspiration for numerous supernatural tales about vampires and devilry.
History remembers Vlad Tepes as a sadistic madman, though in his native land he is revered as a savior from Turkish domination. This list of facts explains how he got his name, how Bram Stoker came to use it, and why opinion on the Impaler is divided. It also covers the main occurrences in the life of this controversial character.
1. Vlad Tepes the Impaler was born in 1431 in Transylvania and died in 1476 at the age of 45.
2. Vlad was Prince of Wallachia three times in 1448, 1456-1462, and 1476. Wallachia was a kingdom that now comprises the southern half of Romania. His official title was Vlad III, or Voivode of Wallachia.
A map of Wallachia (green). The colored regions now form Romania. | Source
3. The name "Tepes" is a Romanian translation for "the Impaler." It was a title given to him posthumously.
4. Vlad earned this name by impaling his enemies through the torso with large stakes and erecting these stakes in the ground. Impalement would proceed either vertically or horizontally through the core of the body. Sometimes thousands of prisoners would be impaled at the same time. Many victims lived for several days in agony.
5. The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire was at war with Wallachia. In 1462, Sultan Mehmed II fled with his army at the sight of 20,000 impaled corpses rotting on the outskirts of Vlad's capital city, Targoviste.
6. Upper limits on the Impaler's combined atrocities put the death toll at around 100,000.
A German woodcut of Vlad presiding over the impalement of Ottoman prisoners. | Source
7. His father's name was Vlad II Dracul. "Dracul" originally meant "dragon", although it later came to mean "devil." His father adopted this name when he joined the "order of the dragon," a Christian group opposed to Ottoman domination in Europe. As a result, the Impaler was often called Vlad Dracula, which means "son of the dragon" and later "son of the devil."
8. Bram Stoker borrowed this infamous man's name for his vampire novel, Dracula. Stoker was friends with the Hungarian history professor, Armin Vambery, and may have gotten the idea from him.
9. Despite an association with Transylvania, this land lay to the north of Wallachia, and was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. However, Vlad did persecute the Transylvanian Saxons during his rule. He made frequent raids across the border, and many Transylvanians were allegedly impaled.
A 1992 Movie Blurs the Line Between Vlad and the Vampire
10. During his childhood, Vlad is believed to have studied all of the academic disciplines. He was also educated in warfare and close combat.
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