That’s is not Vlad Dracula’s House

And that’s not his dad, either…

Another Romania-related one as I catch up with material that I’ve been sitting on since my visit to Romania in 2020. On that trip I stayed briefly in the beautiful old walled town section of Sighișoara, which I thoroughly recommend. Like many westerners my interest in the city, the country and indeed the historical Vlad III Dracula was sparked by a love of vampire fiction, but like at least some, I have also found the real history so much more interesting than the actually quite loose connection between Count and Voivode. I was well aware that the historical Dracula had no connection to Bran Castle, but I knew little of the Sighișoara connection. I was skeptical of the connection myself and researched it as best I could at the time, but didn’t get around to posting about it. I was pleased to see Dr Adrian Gheorghe of the Corpus Draculianum project covering all of the major ‘Vlad’ sites in a recent YouTube video (in Romanian, with English subtitles). The focus of Vlad claims in Sighișoara is the ‘Vlad Dracul House’ or Casa Vlad Dracul, supposedly where Vlad II was living when the future Dracula was born. The evidence given is the presence of the coin mint that Vlad II was known to have operated at the time, the supposed age of the house itself, and a fresco depicting a mustachioed chap identified as Vlad II. Gheorghe cites three reasons why this cannot be the Drăculești family residence, two of which I had figured out and can add a little to, one of which I had missed. I’ll summarise these several arguments against, but please do watch Dr Gheorghe’s video as it covers other sites such as Poenari Castle, which I will one day write about, and the infamous Bran);

1. Gheorghe states that the current building dates from the end of the 17th century, since it would have been destroyed in the great fire of 1676. From my own research I can add that this is supported by writer Dieter Schlesak and historian Michael Kroner. I should also mention that the cellar is claimed to be significantly older – 14th – 15th century based on the extant architecture with occupation even further back than this, based upon unpublished pottery finds by archaeologist Georghe Baltag (of whom more in a moment). Some sources claim that the facade of the building is circa 1500, but this is academic since that’s still significantly post-Vlad II. The building as it stands cannot be Vlad’s house. At best we can say that the cellar could in theory be that of the purported Drăculești residence. Unfortunately we’re not done yet…
2. He also points out that if this was Vlad’s house, the mint could not have been co-located there because of the constant loud noise. However, we don’t even need to speculate on the tolerance or deafness of Vlad, his family or his neighbours, because if there is any archaeological evidence for a mint at this site, it has never been published (again, by Baltag) as this report laments. 
3. Gheorghe confirms that the figures in the fresco supposedly including Vlad II are wearing high status clothing from the 18th century. Others say 17th century, including career Dracula grifters McNally and Florescu, who spuriously claim that it must be a copy of an earlier original. Whether copied or entirely much later, there’s no reason to think that a high status resident of Sighișoara (almost certainly a Saxon) would be celebrating this controversial Wallachian figure. Quite apart from all of this and despite M&F’s insistence that the resemblance of the fresco is “uncanny”, it’s pretty naive and cartoonish. There is in any case no known depiction of Vlad II with which to compare it. Almond-shaped eyes and olive skin with a big moustache aren’t enough, I’m afraid.
4. Finally, something I missed but shouldn’t have since it was mentioned in an article I found – Gheorghe informs us that foreigners were not even permitted to live within the city walls and that there is no historical evidence for any exception made for Vlad II.

So where did this claim originate? Gheorghe references an unnamed Romanian historian that wanted to help create a more Romanian (i.e. Wallachian) past for Sighişoara by placing a Romanian noble (specifically the new national hero that was Vlad III) in the city at this early date. There are in fact two Romanian historians responsible for this myth. One is Gheorghe Baltag, who is criticised pretty hard in this article. Baltag’s original claim was published in Magazinul Istoric in 1977, specifically Vol. 11 No. 1 (issue 127, which is available behind a paywall here). In this he cites the fresco, the age of the building, and “local tradition” as his evidence and does not even mention the mint. However, as the Romanian magazine ‘Historia’ revealed earlier this year, this “local tradition” dates back only as far as 1945, when a medical doctor by the name of I. Culcer, who knew of the original discovery of the fresco circa 1900, first made the connection to Vlad II (I have not been able to identify where this was published or exactly what was claimed). Both men sought to better tie the Saxon city of Sighişoara into the modern nation of Romania, but did so on the flimsiest of evidence. Romanians have a fascinating and important history that does not need or deserve this kind of spurious approach. To be fair to Baltag, he retracted his own claim in another issue of Magazinul Istoric (Vol. 40, Issue 2, February 2006, pp. 13-16) in which he admits that “…today the hypothesis is rejected by most serious historians and can no longer be taken into account in any case.” He helpfully explains that the house, known prior to its spurious modern name as the Casa Paulinus, was named after Mayor Johannes Paulinus, under whose ownership it was documented as having burned in the 1676 fire, being rebuilt in its present form by his descendants. There is no mention of the survival of an older facade or even cellar (not that it would matter as noted above). Baltag doesn’t even mention the house in the chapter (‘Sighişoara – istorie şi arhitectură’) that he wrote for the 2009 book ‘Turism Cultural’ (edited by Teodorescu, pp. 18-20). Neither source references a mint at the site (he would know – he did the excavations in 1979) and in both publications he states that the house post-dates Vlad II. So the primary proponent of the theory completely abandoned it, albeit he leaves the possibility that Vlad II could have lived within the walls and states that his mint must have (which does make sense if sited away from major dwellings and/or below ground). I’m still not sure who first claimed that Vlad II’s mint was located at Casa Paulinus. Cazacu claims that the house was “known” for having the mint on site prior to the association with Vlad (2017, ‘Dracula’, p.2) but I can find no evidence for this and surely Baltag of all people would have mentioned it.

Thus the association with the Drăculești begins with the fresco that almost certainly does not depict Vlad II in a house that is too new to have housed him. It never had a mint – the claim that it did follows from the flawed identification of Vlad II and is not based upon any archaeological or historical evidence. Dracul and family, whilst they probably did live in the city, could not have lived within the walls of the Old Town. That is definitively not the house where Vlad Dracula was born or where he or his father lived, despite ongoing efforts from the tourism industry, ignorant westerners, and even some Romanian academics.