2006 - in Venice, on the island of Lazzaretto Nuovo, archaeologists from Italy excavated a huge grave, which contained more than 1500 remains of townspeople who died from the epidemic of the bubonic plague in 1576. Scientists drew attention to a well-preserved skeleton, between the jaws of which a piece was clamped clay brick. In the course of 2 years of research, it was established that in this way the Venetians tried to punish those who, in their opinion, sent the epidemic - vampires. There was not enough stake in the heart to kill the "undead". It was necessary to drive a stone or brick into the vampire's mouth so that the villain would die of hunger.
Vampire hunters
Medieval manuscripts indicate that the belief in vampires gave rise to eerie-looking reactions from decaying human organs. During epidemics, overcrowded cemeteries were excavated from time to time in order to bury fresh dead. Quite often, graves were opened in this way, and a strange picture often appeared to the eyes of the surprised diggers: blood oozes from the mouth of the dead, and in the shroud, in place of the face, there is an inexplicable hole. Only one conclusion could be drawn: the person is alive, he gnawed through the shroud so that it would be more convenient to drink human blood.
In the meantime, for medicine in our time, this spectacle is not unusual. As a result of the accumulation of gases, the decomposing entrails are pushed out through the esophagus, poisonous liquid oozes from the mouth, and the tissue that covers the face is destroyed by bacteria.
The methods of fighting vampires in the Middle Ages are well known to historians, they are described in detail in various written sources. But to this day, no evidence of this kind has been found.
Legends and reality
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It should be noted that the belief in vampires, sucking the blood of the living, appeared long before the Middle Ages. And legends about vampires can be found in the folklore of peoples around the world. In Ancient Assyria they were called akaharu, in India - strigons, in Ireland - banshees or dirg-dals, in Ukraine - ghouls …
We should also mention lamias. They were considered night demons in ancient Rome and ancient Greece. It is curious that the myth of the lamias as vampires appeared under the influence of legends that circulated about the temples of Cybele-Rhea, whose priestesses (lamias) practiced bloody rituals.
In pagan times, vampires more often appeared as spirits and demons of the night, in different countries they had a different appearance - from an ugly monster to a beautiful woman. With the spread of Christianity in Europe, the vampire mythology was supplemented and expanded. New features and properties were added to them, and after the advent of book printing, brochures were published, in which they told in detail how to deal with a vampire and who might be suspected of vampirism.
It all boiled down to the fact that if a person was at least somehow different from others in the circumstances of death or birth, had some physical disabilities, or, on the contrary, retained beauty and youth for a long time, then he had every chance of being accused of vampirism.
The vampires were fought with herbs, the smell of which they thought they could not stand. These were primarily garlic, as well as buckthorn and hawthorn (according to legend, the crown of Jesus was decorated with this shrub). It was also believed that a vampire could not walk past the scattered grains and past the rope with knots until he collected all the grains and untied the knots. Therefore, the peasants scattered millet on the windowsills in the hope of protecting themselves from night guests.
The unhealthy atmosphere of the cities and the poverty of the villages, as well as the increasing cases of mass psychosis against the background of the witch hunt, gave rise to more and more vampires, they began to be noticed in every city and every village. Everywhere there was a vampire contender, dead or alive. They were also made responsible for any death. And as soon as an epidemic came to a village or city, they began to look for the culprits and, of course, found. Often among people who have already died.
How do you become vampires?
In general, after death, any person could become a vampire. However, there is a certain group of people for whom this transformation is more likely: excommunicated from the Church, suicides, who died a violent death, sorcerers, as well as everyone who is not buried in a Christian cemetery. And some expected such a grim fate even because of congenital features - those born with teeth or in a "headdress" (with a head covered with the remnants of the amniotic membrane or placenta).
The category of those who were easily classified as vampires included people with very dark or light blue eyes, with red hair like Judas, or with red birthmarks on the body.
When such people died, they were placed in a coffin and buried with special precautions. In Romania, a nail was driven into the forehead of the deceased or his body was pierced with needles. The skin was smeared with the fat of a pig, slaughtered on the day of St. Ignatius. To prevent the soul of the alleged vampire from returning to the body, a head of garlic (in Romania), a consecrated prosphora (in Greece) or a lemon (in Saxony) was placed in the mouth of the deceased.
To prevent the deceased from leaving the grave, they nailed him to the bottom of the coffin. In the Sudetenland, the body was wrapped in a knitted shroud: the vampire had to lower one loop a year. In Russia, poppy seeds were thrown into the coffin so that the vampire would count them every night. Suicides and excommunicates were usually buried at the crossroads. In Serbia, to protect the house from the vampire, crosses are painted on doors and windows with tar. In Christian Europe, vampirism was often considered divine punishment. Those who violate religious prohibitions, desecrate graves and do not attend divine services are often subjected to this curse.
In Romania, heads of garlic were hung from the ceiling in all rooms and rubbed on doors, windows, chimneys and keyholes; in Russia, the roads leading to cemeteries were sprinkled with poppy seeds or rosehip seeds: the vampire must collect them all one by one.
"The Great Fix" or the death of a vampire
To kill a vampire, you must first pierce his heart with a wooden stake. In Russia, aspen was used for this (the cross of Christ was made from this tree). In other countries, they preferred the thorns, reminiscent of the crown of Christ. In Dalmatia and Albania, the consecrated stiletto was used. The action, which in Romania was called the great correction , was carried out at dawn, with the first rays of the sun; the one who performed the rite had to drive the stake with one blow, otherwise the vampire could be resurrected, he was beheaded with the gravedigger's spade and burned, and the ashes were scattered in the wind, or buried at the intersection of two roads.
Who were they really?
It often happened that people were buried while still alive, in a state of clinical death. The unfortunate victims woke up in the graves and tried to get out. Later, robbers or ordinary residents, alarmed by the thought that the buried might turn out to be vampires, dug them up, with horror discovered the twisted bodies of those who unsuccessfully tried to get out of the grave captivity, and made their own conclusions. That was why belief in vampires grew stronger.
Knowing the level of education of the people of that era, it is easy to imagine what horror gripped them when they opened the burial and saw blood under the nails or in the mouth of a corpse, gaping in the last cry. And if the coffin was opened, when the body was still showing signs of life, a stake stuck in the chest put an end to the suffering of the unfortunate.
All these methods of dealing with vampires gave rise to even greater psychosis in society and, as a result, even more rumors. Cases of vampirism were recorded everywhere. If we recall the situation in Europe at that time, there is every reason to assume that vampires then actually met. However, in reality, these were innocent, sick people.
Now different experts call vampirism by different names: anemia, porphyria, anhydratic ectodermal dysplasia … But by and large, these diseases have one feature - an ailment, as a result of which a person's blood formula changes dramatically.
The lack of iron in the blood makes patients hypersensitive to sunlight. And even after a short exposure to the sun, severe burns appear on their skin. Naturally, those suffering from "vampirism" eventually move to a nocturnal lifestyle.
As a result of the disease, they also have a malfunction of the endocrine organs. And people are gradually overgrown with thick hair growth, in reality, similar to animal hair. Changes occur in the horny tissues - long twisted nails grow on the fingers and toes. People suffering from this kind of blood disease have a pale appearance. They have suspiciously straight eyebrows and small, pointed ears pressed to their heads. Compare these symptoms with the descriptions of the appearance of vampires in legends and legends - isn't it the same face?
Most likely, it is for this reason that the legend was born about the ability of vampires to turn into werewolf animals.
Perhaps some of the "vampires" could be ordinary mental patients. The tense atmosphere and constant talk about ghouls often forced people suffering from one of the types of manic psychosis or schizophrenia to identify with vampires. They behaved as the legends say: they slept during the day, took to the streets at night and drank the blood of their victims.
Count Dracula is innocent?
But what about the most famous "vampire of all times and peoples" - Count Dracula? Although it would be more correct to say not a count, but a prince - this was the title that the ruler of Wallachia, Vlad III Tepes, who lived in the middle of the 15th century, had. Dracula got his dubious fame as "the greatest vampire" thanks to the work of Bram Stoker, published in 1897. It was Stoker who initiated the creation of the romantic image of a vampire aristocrat, which eventually gained wide popularity thanks to the development of cinema.
But the cinematic image of Dracula is absolutely different from its historical prototype. Although the deeds of the prince, widely circulated by literary works of the 15th century, are really blood-curdling. A terrible impression is made by stories about how Dracula loved to feast, watching the torment of the impaled victims, how he burned tramps whom he himself invited to the feast, how he ordered to hammer nails into the heads of foreign ambassadors who did not take off their hats …
In fact, there is not a single word of truth in these stories. Vlad was actually distinguished by cruelty - towards the conquerors of his homeland, the Turks, and the traitors who preferred to live under the Ottoman yoke. Despite the inequality of power, Vlad Dracula desperately confronted the aggressor. Wallachia thus impeded the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and Sultan Mehmed II decided to overthrow the unwanted prince by military means.
The throne of Wallachia was claimed by Dracula's younger brother, Radu the Handsome, who converted to Islam and became the favorite of the Sultan. And despite this, Vlad was still able to win a brilliant victory over Mehmed II in the Turkish-Wallachian war of 1462. But the prince was waiting for betrayal: his cousin with his people went over to the side of the Turks. Vlad was forced to retreat to Transylvania, where his "ally", the Hungarian king Matthias Corvin, ordered the arrest of Dracula, accusing him of secret correspondence with Turkey.
Dracula spent a long time in prison, being tortured, but did not incriminate himself. It was then that Matthias Korvin began an information war against his unbroken prisoner: by his order, engravings depicting a "cruel tyrant" and many early printed brochures under the general title "About one great monster" were distributed throughout Europe. All this was supposed to form a negative attitude towards Vlad, turning him from a hero to a villain. Later, Bram Stoker took one of these "truthful" sources as the basis for his book.
It should be noted that in Vlad's homeland, Dracula is still honored as a national hero.
