invented) by the Saxons. The invention of movable type printing contributed to the popularity of the stories about Vlad, making them one of the first "bestsellers" in Europe. To enhance sales, they were published in books with woodcuts on their title pages that depicted horrific scenes. For instance, the editions published in Nuremberg in 1499 and in Strasbourg in 1500 depict Vlad dining at a table surrounded by dead or dying people on poles. Slavic stories There are more than twenty manuscripts (written between the 15th and 18th centuries) which preserved the text of the Skazanie o Drakule voievode (The Tale about Voivode Dracula). The manuscripts were written in Russian, but they copied a text that had originally been recorded in a South Slavic language, because they contain expressions alien to the Russian language but used in South Slavic idioms (such as diavol for "evil"). The original text was written in Buda between 1482 and 1486. The nineteen anecdotes in the Skazanie are longer than the German stories about Vlad. They are a mixture of fact and fiction, according to historian Raymond T. McNally. Almost half of the anecdotes emphasize, like the German stories, Vlad's brutality, but they also underline that his cruelty enabled him to strengthen the central government in Wallachia. For instance, the Skazanie writes of a golden cup that nobody dared to steal at a fountain because Vlad "hated stealing so violently ... that anybody who caused any evil or robbery ... did not live long", thereby promoting public order, and the German story about Vlad's campaign against Ottoman territory underlined his cruel acts while the Skazanie emphasized his successful diplomacy calling him "zlomudry" or "evil-wise". On the other hand, the Skazanie sharply criticized Vlad for his conversion to Catholicism, attributing his death to this apostasy. Some elements of the anecdotes were later added to Russian stories about Ivan the Terrible of Russia. Assertion by modern standards The mass murders that Vlad carried out indiscriminately and brutally would most likely amount to acts of genocide and war crimes by current standards. Romanian defense minister Ioan Mircea Pașcu asserted that Vlad would have been condemned for crimes against humanity had he been put on trial at Nuremberg. National hero The Cantacuzino Chronicle was the first Romanian historical work to record a tale about Vlad the Impaler, narrating the impalement of the old boyars of Târgoviște for the murder