Arnold Paole

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Arnold Paole (* before 1727; † 1732 in Medvedga ; also: Arnod Paole , Arnond Parle , Arnold Pavle ) was a Serbian Hajduk who allegedly became a vampire after his death . His case and that of Peter Plogojowitz are the best-known examples of the everyday belief in vampires in Serbia at that time, as they were documented in the records of imperial Austrian officers and doctors.

Paole's death

In the spring of 1727 Arnold Paole returned from his military service in the Ottoman army to his home town of Medvedga on the Morava , near the Serbian city of Niš . The area in southern Serbia had been under Habsburg rule for several years . The former mercenary bought a piece of land, turned to agriculture and was soon known in the village community. As a former soldier, he may also have received grants from the imperial military administration, which tried to set up a border guards militia on the border with the Ottoman Empire that was familiar with the country, but also with the warfare of the Ottomans. After a while, he fell in love with the daughter of the landowner, whose land bordered on his and the two married.

Arnold told his wife that he was very afraid of dying prematurely. During his military service he was stationed in Gossowa (presumably today's Kosovo ), where the superstition said that a curse overtakes those who kill themselves and that they are transformed into restless undead , ie into vampires. He also told his wife that he was visited by an undead creature there, but that he had visited the grave of this creature and burned the body , as was the custom there. In addition, he had eaten from the earth under which the vampire was buried to protect himself from further attacks. However, this experience had affected him so badly that he left the military and returned home.

In 1732 Arnold fell from a hay cart and was carried unconscious into the house, where he died shortly afterwards. He was buried in the local cemetery .

The consequences

A short time later, rumors about Arnold began. He was seen in town several times, always at night. Some even claimed that he visited her and choked her. However, there was no mention of blood sucking in any of the eyewitness accounts . Several weeks later, however, several of the people who claimed to have seen Arnold after his death were found dead without the cause of death being known. An official commission sent by the Habsburg military administration in Belgrade , which consisted of two medical officers , two members of the army and a priest , was supposed to provide clarity . They decided to open Arnold Paole's grave and exhume his body . What they found was more than astonishing: his body was apparently not rot at all and his hair and fingernails seemed to have grown back. But the final proof that Arnold was a vampire was the fresh blood that was in the corners of his mouth. The Austrian commissioners had the body of Arnold Paole and all other corpses showing signs of vampirism staked and cremated.

The medical officer Johann Flückinger sent a detailed report to Vienna in which he described the events in Serbia and tried to find an explanation. His report was reprinted in numerous newspapers within a few weeks and sparked a long-term discussion about the character of the vampire. More than twenty writings (including by Johann Christoph Harenberg , Michael Ranft and Augustin Calmet ) appeared within a few years. Protestant Germany was the center of the debate, because according to official theological doctrine there could not be any revenants who would appear to the living after their death from the grave and harm them.

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