Concerning a Despot called Dracula, Voievod of Wallachia

The worst despot and
tyrant that I know
on all this earth
under the wide vault of heaven,
since the world began;
no-one was ever so despicable.
I want to tell you about him.
He was Dracula, called voievod.
This very land of Wallachia
was under his control.
Here his father had also been lord.
A powerful ruler was he, over wide expanses.
Also exercised authority
with wantonness and impropriety.
Thus he was beheaded
so that his violent dominion might end.
The person who did it was the father
King Matthias of Hungary.
Hunyadi was his name,
the governor of Hungary
who had the ruler executed.
The dead man’s son was also called Dracula—
and his brother with him.
They had bowed down to idols,
to whom they offered homage,
as with a single voice.
These they then abjured,
denied and forswore, by
claiming to protect and maintain
the Christian faith.
The year, as men write and reckon it,
after the birth of Christ,
was 1400
and fifty-six.
Then this same Dracula
was chosen and selected
to be ruler and lord
of all Wallachia
and thereabouts: inside and out—
both near and far.
From then on in this land, he perpetrated
every kind of wantonness, vice and dishonor
that one might imagine.
The first thing he did
was to murder the ruler, voievod Ladislaus,
by virtue of a nasty intrigue.
This same Ladislaus had also been ruler
and lord in Wallachia.
Dracula brought about his death
disgracefully, shamefully and sorrowfully.


Michael Beheim, 1463