Ancient history

Vlad Tepes and the Order of the Dragon

Europe's first and oldest royal and secular order of chivalry, the Order of Saint George , was founded by the Angevin King of Hungary, Charles I , in 1326. Although its founding charters have been preserved to this day – or an updated version of them – with its great seal, we know hardly anything about its operation. Its sudden dissolution could be due to the attempted assassination of the king in his own court in Visegrád, close to modern Budapest (40 km from it), and the defeat of his hosts at the hands of his vassal, voivode Basarab I of Wallachia, in the battle of Posada –in the southern Carpathians, on the border of the voivodeship with Hungary–, in November 1330. In the confrontation, one of the king's knights came to exchange his armor, decorated with his own heraldry, with that of the monarch and, finally, to sacrifice his life for him in combat. This heroic behavior could well be a consequence of his belonging to the recently established chivalric order, but unfortunately we cannot be sure, since the founding charter does not mention the names of its members.

For his part, Sigismund of Luxembourg , whose first wife was Maria, granddaughter of the aforementioned Charles I, was King of Hungary from 1387 –as well as of Bohemia (from 1419), King of the Romans (1411) and, later, Holy Roman Emperor (1433) – until his death in 1437. It is likely that his penchant for courtly ceremonial stemmed from the chivalric atmosphere of the court of his father, Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg. After the death in 1419 of his brother Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, he became the visible head of the Order of the Towel [N. of the E.:military order inspired by the evangelical episode of the washing of the feet of the disciples by Jesus, narrated in John 13:5] and, as his successor, exercised his right to designate its members. Although the fueros do not mention it, it is possible that Segismundo knew of the foundation of the Order of Saint George by his ancestor. The only indication, perhaps, is the supposed existence of a chapel of the Order of Saint George in the aforementioned Visegrád, royal seat on the banks of the Danube, which is mentioned in 1425 on the occasion of the arrival of the Franciscans in the city by order of Segismundo, although it is pointed out that by then it was already in ruins.

But the similarities between both military orders end here. For that of San Jorge, Carlos I tried to establish an authentic community with an official headquarters, a limited number of members and a very strict protocol of regular meetings. Evidently, this Angevin order was also intended to reinforce the authority of the king , but, since we do not know the names of its members, we do not know if they were chosen from among the aristocracy of lineage or among the courtly gentlemen.

The order created by Sigismund was just the opposite:It lacked an official dedication –although the statutes refer to Saint George and his dragon on two occasions–, a venue with a chapel, regular meetings, nor did it adhere to any ideal or model of chivalrous behavior, except for the obligation to attend the funerals of its members or, failing that, pay thirty masses for its soul and dress in mourning for one day. Professor Boulton is probably right when he states that the order was “the first organization of its kindconceived in exclusively political terms ”, Which should not surprise us since Sigismund was a master of political and diplomatic stratagems, obtaining through negotiation everything he lost on the battlefield. Perhaps at first he had a structured community in mind, since in one of the first statutes he appointed judge Simón de Rozgony dean and rector of the order, titles of which we have no further news of his existence.

Sigismund and his second wife, Barbara of Celje, founded the order through a charter of December 12, 1408, at a time when the monarch had already suffered his most bitter political and military failures:the defeat of his army by the Turks at Nicopolis in 1396, and his arrest in 1401 by the Hungarian aristocracy, who almost dethroned him. Sigismund survived both crises and, after the second, set out to consolidate his power, so successfully that it even allowed him to undertake years-long journeys through Western Europe without fear of revolt. We do not know to what extent the creation of the Order of the Dragon could have influenced this. , but it seems clear that by 1408 the list of members already included the most influential aristocrats of the kingdom and the main foreign vassals of the king.

Objectives

The founding statute summarized in its prologue the main objectives of the order – whose Latin name was Societas draconica seu draconistarum , Fraternitas draconum or, in German, Gesellschaft mit dem Trakchen – as follows:

According to its charter, the order hadtwenty-four members –number similar to the Order of the Garter–, among which were the King and Queen of Hungary. Consequently, the members had to swear eternal loyalty the royal couple, as well as their sons –later also their daughters– alive and unborn, and defend each other against any aggression . In return, they enjoyed certain privileges such as the special protection of the king through his binding discretion in the complaints of the members.

The order also had unlimited number of second-class members and open to both Hungarians and foreigners, which proved to be a very useful weapon for weaving networks of influence and whose composition clearly reflected the objectives of the order:beyond the high dignities and the aristocracy of the kingdom, the category outside the The barony could contain members of the lower nobility, who made a career thanks to their membership in the order, such as the house of Rozgonyi or that of Báthory –some members of the latter even reached the principality of Transylvania and, in one case, the crown of Poland–.

The list ofmembers of the first class was pretty much unchanged , as evidenced by a peace treaty between Hungarians and Poles signed in 1423 in which the seals of twenty-two Hungarian aristocrats appeared, which, in ten cases, were identical to those present in the founding statutes of the order. But the fame of this brotherhood was not limited to the elites, but it spread throughout society as a whole. , as reflected, among other things, by the proliferation of fireplace tiles with the dragon emblem.

From a Hungarian point of view, the rulers of neighboring countries were vassals of the Crown, although two of them, those of Serbia and Wallachia, were Orthodox Christians. As allies and as members of the order, they participated in the anti-Ottoman foreign policy sponsored by Sigismund and were part of the security cordon around Hungary. Bosnia proved to be the most troublesome ally. From 1387 –even more so since 1405– it forced recurrent fights against its leader, Duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, over whom Sigismund achieved, in 1408, a long-awaited victory at Dobor, on the Bosna riverbed, which became a direct antecedent of the foundation of the order. Although Hrvoje joined it in 1409, he rebelled again in 1413 and, curiously enough, the king deprived him of all his titles and possessions for violating the statutes of the order, but not his membership. . Furthermore, in league with the Ottomans, Hrvoje defeated a Hungarian army in 1415 at Doboj Castle, west of Banja Luka. Sigismund then tried to seize Bosnia by means of a succession treaty, since the newly crowned King of Bosnia, Tvrtko II Kotromanić, married Doroteja, daughter of the first dignitary of the kingdom, Juan de Gara. However, the Ottomans undermined the plan. Not surprisingly, therefore, the dragon emblem is documented on Tvrkto's throne in Bobovac Castle, proving that it did indeed belong to the order. The strategy of aggrandizement of Hungary through hereditary means bore fruit in the case of Serbia when in 1427, after the death of another member of the order, Despot Esteban Lazarević, Sigismund assumed dominion over the region.

Hungarian pressure on Wallachia was equally determined. The best known member of the order was without a doubt Vlad III Tepes, the historical Dracula , son of twice voivode Vlad Dracul II (1437-1442 and 1444-1447). Tepes entered the order in 1431 and the King of Hungary Mathias Corvinus he gave him military aid, although from the year 1462 he kept him held in Hungary as a member of his family, since he had married the king's niece. His residences have been identified thanks to archeology in the Hungarian cities of Segesvár (present-day Sighișoara, Romania) and Pécs; in the latter he had a house that until 1489 was still called Drakwlyahaza ("Dracula's house").

The granting of the dragon badge was associated with a donation charter, of which, however, only two examples have survived, those of the Hungarian nobleman András Chapy and that of Vitautas the Great, Grand Duke of Lithuania. The order had numerous illustrious members of non-Hungarian origin , such as King Eric of Denmark, Ladislaus II Jagiellon of Poland, Oswald von Wolkenstein or Henry V of England. All were honorably awarded the title by the King of Hungary as a diplomatic present, often with the right to assign it to third parties. Thus, for example, the Albanian aristocrat Jorge Castriota (known as Skanderberg) received it from King Alfonso V of Aragon. It seems that, despite the high number of members, belonging to the order was highly valued and great care was taken to reflect the emblem on portraits, heraldic shields and, above all, on tombstones, as documented in the regions of Austria, Dalmatia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Silesia and Italy.

Operation

On the occasion of his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in 1433, Sigismund asked the pontiff for permission to modify the statutes of the order, which demonstrates his supranational character. These amendments simplified the appearance requirements of its members and promised crusader privileges to members who fought for the order. Throughout his life, Sigismund regarded the dragon emblem as a symbol of his reign , as documented in the Portuguese manuscript Livro de Arautos , where in fact Sigismund's coat of arms is represented on the occasion of the Council of Constance in 1416. Later, Sigismund had it engraved on his last great seal, which he began to use after his coronation as emperor in 1433 .

The chivalric ceremony did not forget the political ends with whom the order had been founded, which we can see acting in some cases, such as in 1412, when Sigismund appealed to his members to participate in the war against Frederick IV, Duke of Austria. Likewise, the founding charters stipulated the possibility of arbitrating disputes between the members and the occasion for this arose with the confrontation between the Counts Heinrich of Plauen and Alsso von Sternberg of Bohemia, which was settled with an act signed by twenty-nine members from Germany. , Austria, Bohemia and Italy, "as well as other members of the Order of the Dragon". Even Duke Hrvoje himself appealed to that discretion – or so he stated in one of his letters – on the occasion of his rebellion against Sigismund in 1413.

The emblem of the order, which was worn with a string on the left side, had several variants. The bulk of the members, in unlimited number, exhibited a simple dragon, while those belonging to the barony had the right to carry the dragon clinging to a cross with the motto O quam misericors est deus, justus et pius . It was in the form of a brooch of different sizes made of gold fabric or corlada sewn on the garment or applied to the armor. The most exclusive versions were likely to be pawned, as has been documented through wills. This is how Segismund himself did it – as his servant Ebehard Windecke narrates in his memoirs – with the insignia of the Order of the Garter when he was in Bruges on his way back from a trip to England to get cash. He had been admitted to the order on May 24, 1416 at Windsor, in whose chapel he had deposited in return as a present a sword decorated with silver dragons, which is now kept in York.

Twilight and Rise of the Order of the Dragon

The question of the survival of the order is easier to elucidate than in the case of the one founded by Charles I. Sigismund's daughter, Isabel, married Albert of Habsburg (reg. 1437-1439) and both named new members of the order, among them, the famous Castilian traveler Pedro Tafur, who in 1438 they honored with three dignities:the Austrian eagle, the Hungarian dragon and the Bohemian towel. The power to appoint new members then passed to his son Ladislaus V of Habsburg (1444-1457) and, after his death, to Matthias Corvinus ( reg . 1458-1490). In parallel, the then King of the Romans, Frederick III of Habsburg, also made new appointments as regent for his nephew, the aforementioned Ladislaus V. It is possible that the order survived the death of Matthias Corvinus, since we document dragons in heraldry of the last Polish kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty (1490-1526), ​​but by then it seems to have mutated into a sort of aristocratic brotherhood, having lost its original link to the Hungarian crown, as this kingdom lost weight in the international sphere.

The first work that collected the history of the order was published in Leipzig in 1764, and from then on its memory became part of the common Central European cultural heritage. In 1905, a group of intellectuals founded the Croatian Dragon Brotherhood in Zagreb. , which would serve as a cultural society until it was banned by the communists in 1946. In 1990, however, it was reconstituted, and today a square in Zagreb bears its name, a square which, by the way, is graced by a statue of Saint George slaying the dragon. For his part, in Serbia, and as a tribute to Despot Lazarević's membership in the order, in 2011 Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjević founded the Sovereign Military Order of the Dragon based in Belgrade and whose new patron is the King of Serbia Lázaro Hrebeljanović, who perished in the battle of Kosovo against the Ottomans in 1389.

Following the collapse of the Habsburgs, Hungary found it necessary to revamp its system of medals and decorations, and in 1920 serious, albeit unsuccessful, consideration was given to reinstatement of the Order of the Dragon . And it is that his prestige was always hand in hand with King Sigismund, who traditionally had a terrible reputation in Hungary that exaggerated his military defeats and forgot his diplomatic successes. However, since the 1980s this situation has turned around – especially after the holding of two international exhibitions on his reign, in 1986 and 2006 – and today he is considered one of the greatest Hungarian monarchs of all. times and the Order of the Dragon one of the pillars of his long reign. It is no coincidence that the Hungarian branch of the order has been reinstated in Nagyvárad (present-day Oradea, Romania), in whose cathedral, dedicated to Saint Ladislaus, Hungary's first knightly king, canonized in 1192 as a reward for Hungary's efforts during the Third Crusade, rest the remains of Sigismund.

Bibliography

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This article was published in Desperta Ferro Antigua y Medieval nº 53 as a preview of the next issue, Desperta Ferro Antigua y Medieval No. 54:Vlad Tepes. Dracula.