Монети на Дракула

DRACULACoins of a Bloodthirsty Prince

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ROMANIAN NUMISMATICS

ALLOWEEN SOON will be upon us. Asthe last day of October approaches, im-ages of ghouls and other creatures ofthe night invade our imagination. Vam-pires, in particular, hold a special placein the world of the undead, thanks toBram Stoker. From his pen sprang thecharacter of Count Dracula, who leaveshis coffin at sundown to feed on theblood of the living.

The stuff of legend and fantasy?Yes and no. The story of the evil count

was inspired by the flesh-and-bloodthirstyVlad III Dracula, prince of Wallachia in Roma-nia, who ruled in the mid15th century. The OttomanTurks called him Vlad Te-pes, which means “Vlad theImpaler,” because he in-flicted this punishment onhis enemies. The sobriquetstuck, and he becameknown as such throughoutthe medieval world.

The Coins of Vlad II

Vlad Tepes’ father, Vlad II,l ikewise had ruled as aprince of Wallachia (1431,1436-42 and 1444-47). Dur-ing a period of exile in theGerman village of Sighi-soara in Transylvania, VladII and his wife had a sonin 1431.

In February of that year,Vlad II was invited to jointhe prestigious Order of theDragon, similar to otherchivalric institutions in me-dieval Europe. The Order’spurpose was to defend thecross and destroy its ene-mies, symbolized by ancientdragons. The Muslim Turks

—who constantly battled to enter Europethrough Constantinople and the Balkans—werethe hated enemy. Those inducted into the Ordergathered below the sign of the dragon, sub-mitted to the cross and declared their loyalty toHungarian King Sigismond of Luxembourg andhis queen. Constantin Rezachevici wrote thatthe “dragon of the order . . . was not an evil ele-ment during the fifteenth century, but a positivesymbol of knighthood.”

This great honor inspired the elder Vlad totake the name “Dracul,” from the Latin draco,meaning “dragon.” (He came to be known as“Dracula,” which his son later took as the family

name). Vlad II also adoptedthe dragon for his personalcoat-of-arms.

During his reign, Vlad IIstruck small coins calledbani. The obverse typicallypresented an eagle lookingback at a cross (the symboladopted by Christian Wal-lachian rulers), while thereverse, of course, depicts adragon. Rezachevici wrotethat the dragon’s imagespread “through the largecirculation of small coins[and] made a powerful im-pression upon his Roman-ian subjects.”

In addition to the ban,two other coins circulatedin Wallachia during the15th century. The Venetiangold ducat, first minted inItaly in 1202, was consid-ered the official monetaryunit of Wallachia. The sec-ond, the silver dinar, wasequal to the Hungariandenar. The exchange rateat the time was 1 ducat =1 1⁄2 dinar = 3 bani. V

In 15th-century Romania, few enemies—and coins—

survived the bloody reign of Vlad the Impaler.

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Vlad III and His Money

Vlad II’s son continued his father’s Christianmission. Dracula devoted his life to combatinghis enemies—both domestic and Turk—and exe-cuted tens of thousands of them during hisreign. He is well remembered for these atroci-ties, but also for his brave struggle against theIslamic invaders. An accomplished equestrian,the Prince of Wallachia led his soldiers into bat-tle on horseback and fought alongside them. Hewas a cultured gentleman who spoke Romanian,Turkish, Latin and German.

While “dracul” had a positive connotationduring the time of Vlad II and the Order of theDragon, in the reign of Vlad the Impaler, it tookon a different meaning. According to Rezache-vici, in the 5th century the dragon had become asymbol of Satan “in literature, culture, and cleri-cal Christianity,” but it also signified heroism inthe culture of knighthood. Of all the Romancelanguages, Romanian “was the only one inwhich ‘draco’ has the meaning of an evil spirit,demon or devil, whereas in others, the word hasonly the meaning of snake or dragon.” Thus thename “Dracula”—with its diabolical meaning—helped enhance Vlad III’s horrible reputation.

Two unique coins are attributed to Dracula.One is a Wallachian ducat, a “standing ruler”type discovered during an archaeological dig atTargsor, a residence of the Wallachian princes.The obverse of the coin carries a bust of Jesus,while the reverse presents Vlad III, crowned andholding a scepter in his right hand and globesurmounted by a cross in his left. Around therim is the Slavic legend IO VLAD VOEVOD(loosely, “Loyalty to Vlad the Warrior”).

The second coinis a silver ban‚possibly struck inBucharest. In theleft field on the

reverse is a “star with a tail”—a comet. One wasseen in Europe in 1456, the year Dracula beganhis second reign. Renowned Romanian numis-matist Octavian Iliescu attributes these twocoins to Vlad III Dracula.

Dracula’s Legacy

Dracula indeed was a man to be reckonedwith. A vivid description of the prince survives,courtesy of Nicholas of Modrussa, a papal legateto Pope Pius II (1458-64):

He was not very tall, but very stocky and strong,with a cruel and terrible appearance, a longstraight nose, distended nostrils, a thin and red-dish face in which the large wide-open green eyes

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My sacred mission is to bring order to Roma-nia. If someone lies or commits any injustice,he is not likely to stay alive, whether noble-man, priest or common man. There must besecurity for all in my land. If they say I am avindictive man, they fear me. And that iswell. When a prince is powerful at home, hewill be able to do as he wills. If I am fearedby the right people, Romania will be strong.

Vlad III Dracula, Prince of Wallachia

� Vlad III was born in 1431in Sighisoara. Bran Castle inRomania’s Transylvanian Alpsis popularly called Dracula’sCastle, though it has no his-torical connection with the15th-century prince.� Symbol of the chivalricOrder of the Dragon.

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were enframed by bushy black eyebrows, whichmade them appear threatening. His face and chinwere shaven but for a moustache. The swollentemples increased the bulk of his head. A bull’sneck supported the head, from which black curlylocks were falling to his wide-shouldered person.

Stories about Dracula still circulate among Ro-manian peasants. Legend casts Vlad Tepes in apositive light: a just prince and champion of thecommon people who defended Wallachia fromforeigners. Vlad III’s insistence on honesty, aswell as his efforts to wipe out crime, are impor-tant elements in the oral tradition. On the otherhand, his exceptional cruelty is not ignored.

Modern-day author/researcher Simon Marsdenspoke with peasants about the ruthless prince of Wallachia:

One old man in the village of Arefu told us howDracula escaped from the Turks. The night be-fore the fortress was to be stormed, a loyal Ro-manian fired an arrow into Dracula’s living quar-ters. It was found by his wife, who read the noteand told him that she would “rather have herbody rot and be eaten by the fish of the Argesthan be led into captivity by the Turks.” She thenflung herself from the battlements into the riverbelow. Dracula followed his scouts through a se-cret passage and, with the help of local peasants,was able to flee to Transylvania. He is said tohave rewarded the peasants who helped him bygranting them lands here and confirmed this gift

by writing the deeds on animal skins. The oldman said that these skins were still in the posses-sion of the men’s families.

Dracula’s reign of terror began shortly after heascended the throne in 1456, an outgrowth of hisdesire for revenge and a show of strength. In cel-ebration of Easter, he held a feast for the nobilityof Wallachia, mostly German boyars who werepart of the conspiracy that led to his father’sdeath, and his brother’s demise by live burial.

Dracula innocently asked the nobles, “Howmany princes ruled during your lives?” Wantingto impress Vlad III with his experience andlongevity, one reported that he had witnessed30. Not one had seen less than seven, at whichpoint all the boyars were arrested. The olderones and their wives were promptly impaled.

In his book, Marsden described what ensued:

The younger, more able-bodied were chainedtogether and forced to march for sixty milesthrough the rugged countryside to the ruins ofPoienari in the Arges valley. Many of them dieden route; the remainder were shattered, theirfine clothes shredded, some even naked. Limekilns and brick ovens had been built in advance.The prisoners were forced to form a humanchain under the whip to convey the building ma-terials up the mountainside. The restorationwork lasted for two months and very few of thecaptives survived the ordeal.

On St. Bartholomew’s Day (August 24) in1459, Dracula impaled thousands of merchantsand boyars in Brasov, Transylvania. The princeplaced his table among the dead and dying andinvited his nobles to join him for a festive meal.

In 1461 Turkish sultan Mohammed IImarched his soldiers to Wallachia to wage war V

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The prince placed his table among the dead and dying and invited

his nobles to join him for a festive meal.

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� Silver ban attrib-uted to Vlad III.Note the comet onthe reverse, alongthe left edge.

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upon Dracula and his army.No battle took place, how-ever, and the sultan re-turned to Constantinople.

The reason: thesight of 20,000impaled and rot-ting corpses out-side Dracula’scapital of Tirgo-viste sickened andfrightened him.If Dracula coulddo this to his ownpeople, thoughtthe sultan, whatwould he do tothe Turks? Thegreat warrior then

turned the campaign overto his subordinates.

In the winter of 1462, theTurks were the target of a surprise raid along theDanube River. Dracula described the carnage: “Ihave killed men and women, old and young . . .23,884 Turks and Bulgarians without countingthose whom we burned alive in their homes orwhose heads were chopped off by our soldiers.”

Interestingly, coins figure in one of the mostfamous stories about Vlad Tepes. A merchantvisiting Tirgoviste parked his cart filled withtreasures on a street for the night, knowing wellthe city’s crime-free reputation.

In the morning, he returned to his wagon andwas shocked to discover that 160 gold ducatswere missing. The merchant reported the theftto Dracula, who assured him the money wouldbe returned. The distraught man was invited tostay in the palace that night.

Dracula issued a proclamation to the city:find the thief and return all the money, or Tirgo-viste would be razed. The prince then ordered

160 ducats—plus one extra—be removed from his per-sonal treasury and placedin the merchant’s cart. Thenext morning, the man waselated to find his moneyreturned, but when hecounted it, he discoveredthe extra ducat. He re-ported the discrepancy tothe prince.

In the meantime, thethief was captured and im-paled. Dracula told themerchant, “If you had notreported the extra ducat,then you would have beenimpaled alongside him.”

The Death of Dracula

Accounts of Dracula’sdeath differ. A few sources

claim he was slain during a battle against theTurks near Bucharest in December 1476. An-other maintains he was killed by disloyal Wal-lachian boyars. Other reports say that Dracula,dressed as a Turk, accidentally was struck downby one of his own men at the moment of victory.

The great warrior was decapitated, and hishead—preserved in honey—was sent to Con-stantinople. The sultan displayed it on a stake asproof that Vlad the Impaler was dead.

Dracula was buried, minus his head, atSnagov, an island monastery near Bucharest. Anarchaeological team, however, found no remainsof the prince when they opened his crypt. O

Learn More . . .

Marsden, Simon. The Journal of a Ghost-hunter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,1994.

Miller, Elizabeth. “Vlad the Impaler: BriefHistory.” Dracula’s Homepage. www.ucs.mjn.ca/~emiller/vlad.html.

Porter, Ray. “The Historical Dracula.” www.eskimo.com/~mwirkk/castle/vlad/vladhist.html (1992).

Rezachevici, Constantin. “From the Order ofthe Dragon to Dracula.” Journal of DraculaStudies, No. 1 (1999).

“Vlad III Dracula.” wikipedia.com.

Other Sources

Classical Numismatics Discussion Board.www.forumancientcoins.com.

Numism-L. www.limunltd.com/numismatica/internet-resources/numism-l.html. Thread 3620.

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� Bram Stoker’sDracula (1897),inspired by thereal-life Vlad III,has chilled read-ers for over acentury andspawned anynumber of films,such as this 1931Carl Laemmleproduction star-ring Bela Lugosi.

When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazedwith a sort of demonaic fury, and he suddenlymade a grab at my throat. I drew away, andhis hand touched the string of beads whichheld the crucifix. It made an instant changein him, for the fury passed so quickly that Icould hardly believe that it was ever there.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)

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