Dracula's Coronation (1456)

Dracula's coronation - beginning of the second reign

It was not easy for the boyars and the population to identify Vlad, in the summer of 1456. He left the country when he was only a twelve years old child, and only came back for a short period of time in 1448. How could they know he really was the son of Vlad Dracul and not an impostor? The first to recognize him where the old boyars, like jupân Manea Udriste, the chancellor Cazan and a few other old boyars.

Besides those testimonials, there was in Wallachia, but also in Moldavia, another safe way to identify the son of a principle. The new born boy is being “signed” with a burned hot iron, in order to be later easy to recognize as a real son of the principle. At the end, this signs, together with an edict of the Sultan, presented by his mother, allow the identification. Probably as identification signs there was the sun, the moon and a star, that were also present on the national flag, around a rook.

After the identification, the coronation ceremony follows. The ceremony for crowning Vlad took place in the metropolitan church in Curtea de Argeş that Vlad knew pretty well as this was built by his father and inaugurated on August, 15th 1439. Seems like after the coronation ceremony in the church boyars exit and climbed a tribune from where they asked the people “Your principle Vladislav is dead ! Who do you want to choose as a principle ?” all of them answered: “we want only Vlad, son of Vlad !” The ceremony was in a Slavonic language, as in the middle age in Wallachia the official language was pretty similar to the one in Bulgaria, Serbia or Ukraine. The principle was “oiled” ("uns" in Romanian) with special oil made up of thirty essences and blessed in the sacred Thursday. This oil came from Constantinople where the patriarch and metropolitan churches heads were preparing it during a special ceremony. Then he sits the throne and all boyars, heads of the church, military heads, etc come kiss his right hand.

After the ceremony the day ends with a huge dinner.

1459, the attack against Braşov