I recently found an article in a Romanian newspaper, in Romanian, about Hunyadi Castle. Here is some data from it: The vast majority of tourists coming to visit Corvins' Castle in Hunedoara Knights Hall pass through without noticing the wooden hatch that leads to the castle prison. And even if they see it, it would not infer that there in the depths of the castle, the prison is saying that Vlad stayed before being led in Hungary, Visegrad, where he was imprisoned for many years.
Cell in the Knights Hall
Knights Hall. Tourist absorbed by columns and arches of its majestic rooms can easily escape the gaze "unguided" a wooden roof, "armed" with two beautifully shaped metal rods. That's because, while the wood roof and floor have gained about the same colour.
Wooden hatch opens easily with a piece of rope, leaving the visitor to discover a rectangular entrance, three feet long but narrower than 50 centimetres . A wooden staircase descends two and a half meters, directly under the vaults of prisoners cave.
To bottom, in the cell, there are three or four meters, but can not go down because there is no scale. And the only ray of light is coming through the cracks of a wooden lid that is covered with a small window giving directly into the stream Zlaşti. If you have the curiosity to open it, you immediately understand why the prisoners could not escape: from here to down in the valley, lies a wall of stone about 15 meters height.
At the edge of the wall on which probably stood the keeper when more come directly from the Knights Hall, a fragile wooden railing warns the visitor that one should not make any wrong step.
Symbolic Value
The cell has no floor, and the "bottom" over the room to resemble a grotto are dozens of large pieces of stone left in disorder. Left and right walls of the cell are built with stone, and above the walls we notice the brick arch.
It is the only remaining of the former prison cell Corvin Castle, which burned in the mid-nineteenth century, was abandoned about 14 years and then restored.
At that time, craftsmen found that the resistance of the wall structure of north-west has suffered, and any cave left would have caused problems in the future, so that almost all the rooms filled with stone. However, the cell with direct input from the Knights' Hall was left as a testimony for generations. Perhaps they knew, as people from Hunedoara passionate by the castle's stories, that Vlad Ţepes was imprisoned here.
"I saw no entry"
Hall of Knights is an enigma puzzling many visitors, even those passionate about history.
Other travelers who say that neither those from the castle did not made any reference to this. "About the fact that Vlad the Impaler was imprisoned here I was not told by anyone, not at school, but not even when I visited the castle," says Adrian Tomcea from Timisoara.
Equally surprised by the existence of the cell are visitors in the area. Florin Butnaru, Deva, admits: "I joined the Knights Hall about three or four times now, friends came to visit, but I never saw any entry in any hole. I read on the Internet and something about the Impaler castle, but I don't think it was about being trapped on the here, I do not remember."
Historian Nicolae Cerişor, from Corvin Museum, opening the hatch to the prison: "It seems that the sentence served in prison in the Hall of Knights. He was held here a while, then was taken to Visegrad, where he had a softer detention."
Hisstory
Two to three months imprisonment
Historian Nicolae Cerişer, director of the Museum "Corvin Castle, estimated that Vlad Tepeş's detention in Hunedoara lasted two to three months, but could not specify the exact date because the reference documentation at the moment are very limited.
"Vlad Tepeş was arrested, it seems, at Bran, after the nobility of the Romanian country, disturbed by the growing authority of the ruler, have made a compromising letter in which Vlad, by then an ally of Matthias Corvinus, would be declared intention to ally with the Ottoman Empire. It seems that the sentence was communicated to Vlad directly by Matthias Corvinus, or by his representative exactly in the Knits' Hall at Corvin Castle. He was kept here for a while, then he was gone Vişegrad, where he took a more lenient prison, is actually about a "house arrest", as one might say today", explains Nicolae Cerişer.
Legend
Catch and kill birds
Circulating in the area and a number of legends about this historical episode. Some say that , while imprisoned at Hunedoara Vlad was driven mad by the thought that he could serve as food to the hungry animals at anytime (in the place is known as the "lion's den", that probably housed hungry wolves or bears).
Another story says that in the cell, Vlad's appetite for blood should be further increased, it will often climb to the window to catch birds and kill them.
Historian Cerişer Nicolae considers only the fruit of popular imagination: "I do not think that the penalties imposed to Vlad Tepes led to the manifestation of any mental illness. But I think that was his preferred method of imposing authority. Overall, Vlad Tepes killed, probably Stefan cel Mare fewer people than just that he committed such acts in a much shorter interval.
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