History of the Order of the Dragon - Societas Draconis

On December 12, 1408, the Order of the Dragon was first created by Emperor Sigismund, then King of Hungary, following the battle for the possession of Bosnia. From the article:

"History of the Order of the Dragon
Order of the Dragon
The historical and social background for the foundation of the Order is a story of international and domestic developments. The primary reason the Order was established is the fear of expansion of the Ottoman Empire. In 1389, the Ottoman Sultan Murad I defeated Lazar, Prince of Serbia at the Battle of Kosovo Polje, in which both leaders died. Two years later, the Turks took the fortress of Nicopolis. Afterwards, the Crusade of Nicopolis was organised to recapture the fortress and put a halt to the Ottoman expansion. Sigismund was nominally in charge of the crusade. However, in the 1396 battle the French leader, John of Nevers, commanded the French half of the forces and ignored Sigismund's entreaties by charging the Turks. About 15,000 crusaders died with only a few leaders, including Sigismund, escaping. John of Nevers was later ransomed. The battle proved the inability of a medieval knightly state and army to counter the Ottoman Turks. The Hungarians were briefly spared by Ottoman problems in the East, but understood that they had to reorganize their state and military to survive.

Additionally, the origin of the order may be understood by exploring Sigismund's fierce struggles for power leading up to the foundation of the order in 1408. In 1387, the Bohemian royal son Sigismund of Luxemburg was elected King of Hungary, a title which he owed chiefly to his marriage to Queen Mary of Hungary in 1385, without her consent. During the next decade, he constantly sought support or employed ruthless methods to strengthen his unsteady hold on the throne. His claim to rule was weakened in 1395 when Mary, who was pregnant, died in an accident. However, his later alliances suggest that he was not thought to be responsible for their deaths. In 1396, when Hungary appeared to be facing the threat of an attack by the Ottoman Turks (who were already in control of most of the Balkans), Pope Boniface IX proclaimed a crusade against the Ottomans. Sigismund led a coalition of forces, but was defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Although he managed to escape, his position in Hungary was tarnished. He returned to Hungary in 1401 and, facing a number of revolts, gradually resumed control and re-asserted himself as the King of Hungary. This he achieved by allying himself with the political party of Nicholas II Garay and Hermann II of Celje, in return for their military support, which enabled him to fight off domestic rivals. He campaigned against the Croats and Bosnians, which culminated in 1408 with the Battle of Dobor — fought for the possession of Bosnia — and a massacre of noble families. His pact with Hermann II was secured in 1408, when Sigismund married his daughter Barbara of Celje.

Foundation and Purpose

On December 12, 1408, following the Battle of Dobor in which he slaughtered most of Bosnia's nobility, many who had fought the Turks, Sigismund and his queen, Barbara of Celje, founded the league known today as the Order of the Dragon. Its statutes, written in Latin, call it a society (societas) whose members carry the signum draconis (see below), but assign no name to it. Contemporary records, however, refer to it by a variety of similar if unofficial names, such as Gesellschaft mit dem Trakchen, Divisa seu Societate Draconica, Societate Draconica seu Draconistarum and Fraternitas Draconum. It was to some extent modelled after the earlier Hungarian monarchical order, the Order of St. George (Societas militae Sancti Georgii), founded by King Carol Robert of Anjou in 1318. It likewise adopted St. George as its patron saint, whose legendary defeat of a dragon was used as a symbol for the military and religious ethos of the order.

The statute of the Order, which was expanded by Bishop Eberhard of Nagyvárad, chancellor of Sigismund's court, survives only in a copy made in 1707. An edition was published in 1841.The prologue to these statutes of 1408 reports that the society was created:

"in company with the prelates, barons, and magnates of our kingdom, whom we invite to participate with us in this party, by reason of the sign and effigy of our pure inclination and intention to crush the pernicious deeds of the same perfidious Enemy, and of the followers of the ancient Dragon, and (as one would expect) of the pagan knights, schismatics, and other nations of the Orthodox faith, and those envious of the Cross of Christ, and of our kingdoms, and of his holy and saving religion of faith, under the banner of the triumphant Cross of Christ ..."
Though described in general terms, the primary representatives of "the perfidious Enemy" remained the Ottoman Turks, who continued to be problem for Sigismund's successors.The Order's outward focus on foreign threats was also aimed at achieving a level of domestic cohesion. The statutes go on to describe the order's symbols of the ouroboros and the red cross, which were worn by its members and gave the order its corporate identity (see below). They also list the mutual obligations of the king and his nobles. The members were to swear loyalty to the king, queen and their future sons and to protect the royal interests. Boulton argues that "the Society of the Dragon was clearly intended to serve as the institutional embodiment of the royal faction its founder had created." In return for their services, the nobles could expect to enjoy royal protection, honors and offices.

The creation of the order was not without precedent. At the time, various Orders were being created to counter the Ottoman Turk threat. Additionally, many late medieval kings founded their own orders of knights to support their thrones. Sigismund's order was particularly inspired from the Order of Saint George (see above), whose statutes from 1326 required protection of the King from any plot against him, principles also upheld in Sigismund's Order. Another influential model may have been the Sicilian Order of the Ship, founded in 1381.

Between 1408 and 1437, the Order of the Dragon was the most important noble political association in Hungary. The Order of the Dragon was quickly recognized internationally, and as early as 1409, it inspired the Spanish Order of Calatrava which also battled Turks.

Membership
Members of the order, known as "Draconists", are referred to in the statutes as barons (barones, occasionally socii). They were mostly Sigismund's political allies and supporters, who were at first largely confined to the political factions of Stefan Lazarević, Nicholas II Garay and Hermann II of Celje, including such local magnates as Stibor of Stiboricz and Pipo of Ozora. The initial group of inductees for Sigismund's Order numbered 21 men, which extended to about 24 in 1418.

After some time, Sigismund chose to expand the ranks of the Order. A second group of inductees was initiated between 1431-1437. As membership grew, the Order of the Dragon came to have two degrees. There was a superior class, which between 1408 and 1418 wore both the dragon and the cross as the Order's emblem and a more elaborate version afterwards. The second degree had a large amount of members, and its symbol was only the dragon.

Following Sigismund's death in 1437, the Order went underground. However, the prestigious emblem of the Order was retained on the Heraldic Arms of Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, French, Spanish, and Italian, Noble and Royal families, including Báthory, Bocskai, Bethlen, Szathmáry, Rákóczi, de St. Pol, de Aragon, and others. For Knight Membership as a Knight of St. George and Knight of the Dragon, see our menu on the home page and look for the link that says " MEMBERSHIP IN ORDO DRACONIS ".

The Order of the Dragon (German "Drachenorden" and Latin "Societatis Draconistrarum or its more secretive name Societas Ordo Draconistellarum Secretum") was and still is an institution, similar to other Chivalric Orders of the time, modelled on the Order of St George (1318). It was created in 1408 by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund (while he was still King of Hungary) and his queen Barbara Cilli, mainly for the purpose of gaining protection for the royal family. According to its statute (which survives in a copy dated 1707), the Order also required its initiates to defend the Cross and to do battle against its enemies, principally the Turks. The original Order comprised twenty-four members of the nobility, including such notable figures as King Alfonso of Aragon and Naples, and Stefan Lazarevic of Serbia.

In 1431, Sigismund summoned to the city of Nuremberg a number of princes and vassals that he considered useful for both political and military alliances. His primary objective was to initiate the group into the Order of the Dragon. One of these was Vlad (father of Vlad the Impaler), a claimant for the throne of the principality of Wallachia (now part of modern Romania), who was at the time serving in Sighisoara as frontier commander guarding the mountain passes from Transylvania into Wallachia from enemy incursion. While at Nuremberg, Vlad also received Sigismund's pledge to support his claim to the throne of Wallachia. But it would be another five years before that ambition could be realized.

The Order of the Dragon adopted as its symbol in 1408 the image of a circular dragon with its tail coiled around its neck. On its back, from the base of its neck to its tail, was the red cross of St George on the background of a silver field. With the expansion of the Order, other symbols were adopted, all variations on the theme of Dragon and Cross. For example, one class of the Order used a Dragon being strangled with a cross draped across its back; another presents a cross perpendicular to a coiled-up dragon with an inscription "O quam misericors est Deus" (vertical) and "Justus et paciens" (horizontal). Other emblems of the Order included a necklace and a seal, each with a variant form of the dragon motif.
Vlad was obviously proud of this achievement. Later he had coins minted which show on one side a winged dragon. His personal coat-of-arms also incorporated a dragon. In all of these cases, the dragon was intended to convey a favourable image drawn from medieval iconography in which the dragon represents the Beast of Revelation (Satan) who is slain by the forces of good (Christianity). Vlad took on the nickname "Dracul" in reference to his induction into the order. The word "Dracul" has its origins in the Latin "Draco" meaning "the Dragon".

His son Vlad (better known as Vlad the Impaler) used the sobriquet "Dracula"in the context of "son of Dracul" or "son of he who was a member of the Order of the Dragon". Once again it was used as a term of honour. On a number of occasions, Vlad (the Impaler) signed documents using the name. The word "dracul", however, took on a second meaning ("the devil") which was applied to members of the Dracula family by their enemies and possibly also by superstitious peasants. It was this second meaning that found its way into William Wilkinson's An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), the book in which Bram Stoker found the name "Dracula". There is no evidence whatsoever that Stoker knew about the Order of the Dragon.

After the death of Sigismund in 1437, the Order of the Dragon lost much of its prominence, only because the Order at that time in history began to be a part of the Underground Stream to protect its surviving families and their offspring. The downwards flow of our blood in this hereditary line of the Order comes through Sigismund de Luxembourg de St. Pol to our Principe Draconis Emeritus and today it is still retained in Heraldry on the Coats-of-Arms of our Noble and Royal families.