A SCRAP FROM THE PAST – DRAGON COURT & ORDER

Long afterwards, on 13 December 1408 (when Britain was in her Plantagenet era), the fraternal aspect of the Dragon Court was formally made by King Zsigmond von Luxembourg of Hungary at a time of wars.

Having inherited the ancient legacy in 1397, he gathered a pact with twenty-three royals and people who swore to observe ‘true and pure fraternity‘ within the ‘Societas Draconis‘ (Society of the Dragon) – a vision which later became “Ordo Dragonis” (Hungarian: Sárkány Rend – Order of the Dragon), then it was by no means an Order in the recognized chivalric sense.

Along with Zsigmond (Sigismund), other officers were his second wife Barbara Cilli (daughter of Duke Hermann II of Styria) and their daughter Elizabeth, thereby achieving an traditional overall standard of twenty-six members. Others prominent in the Societas Dragonis were,

• King Vladislav Jagello of Poland
• King Alfonse V of Aragon
• Grand Prince Vitovd of Lithuania
• Duke Ernst of Austria
• Christopher III, Duke of Bavaria and King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway
• Later, in 1439, Thomas de Mowbray, England’s Duke of Norfolk, was admitted to the Court

Later, in 1439, Thomas de Mowbray, England’s Duke of Norfolk, was admitted to the Order.

Dracula

After these times, the Hungarian Court of the Dragon is perhaps best known for its association with Vlad II, 15^th-century Prince of Wallachia, and his son Dracula.

In this regard, the story begins in 1431 at the fortress of Sighisoara in Romania, where Vlad III was born into the Wallachian princely House of Barsarab the Great (1310-52). His father, Prince Vlad II, was the appointed military governor of Transylvania and, on 8 February in the year of his son’s birth, he was inducted into the Dragon Court by King Zsigmond of Hungary.

This installation was directly responsible for Vlad II’s style of Lord Dragonis, from which derived his sobriquet Dracul (the Dragon), while his son Vlad III (who inherited the Dragon office at his father’s pledge) became known as Dracula (son of the Dragon).

In later times, the Irish author Bram Stoker made use of Prince Vlad’s nickname in his 1897 Gothic romance, ‘Dracula‘, although creating an entirely fictitious character for his legendary Count (see ‘Realm of the Ring Lords’ by Laurence Gardner). 

Source www.locklip.com