The Real Life of Vlad The Impaler – Dracula

Life of Vlad The Impaler Dracula - the Childhood



By most probabilities, Vlad was born in Sighisoara, in the year 1431, presumably November or December. As explained in this post describing briefly Vlad Dracul’s life, 1431 is very probable the year of his birth. And as his father Vlad II (Dracul) was in Sighisoara by that time, running one of the state’s mints, is very probably that he was born in Sighisoara in the house still standing today near the clock tower (you can see it in this picture that I took in march 2004 in Sighisoara).

There is no much information about the childhood of Vlad III but we know how young princes were educated at that time. There was a “preceptor”, usually an important boyar to take care of them education. This one was searching for them masters of arms, equitation, etc. In the Germanic world as Sighisoara was in the 15th century there was an emphasis put on “the seven skills”: equitation, swimming, using arms, the arch, fighting, the court life and the tournament. We can easily suppose that Vlad Dracul, after receiving this kind of education himself at Sigismund’s Court wanted his sons to be educated in the same manner.
Doubtless equitation was the main activity, as the horse was the universal transport modality, as well as the close friend of the warriors. Learning horse riding at the Wallach court was going in parallel with the fights on-horse, or the “harta” – term used then for the hunting parties.

About theoretical skills we can suppose that Vlad didn’t know writing at most he was able to read. That’s because we don’t have letters written by him, neither signatures nor any other proofs. Slavonic was the language used for writing at that time in Romanian countries. However, official correspondence with Saxon towns in Transylvania was sometimes done in Latin Language. We don’t know if Vlad was in knowledge of this language, however we knew he was speaking Turkish after his stay by the Ottoman court.

In 1436 Vlad Dracul took the throne of Wallachia and his children went along with him in Târgoviste. Here the boys get in contact with what princely court life means. He gets in touch with the Princely Court’s ceremonial, with all the political intrigues of the boyars, become conscious of the fragility of the Wallachia’s Throne and of the Wallachia as a state itself, facing Hungary and The Ottoman Empire. Both Mircea (first son of Vlad Dracul) and Vlad seems to have been strongly influenced by the record of Mircea the Elder, them grandfather, although they haven’t seen him alive.

The teenage of Vlad is presented in this post.