It’s one of those things that you see in pre-modern societies, and that we often don’t fully appreciate in modern societies.

Chaos is often more destructive than structured tyranny, in non-ideological contexts. One set of bastards pleasing themselves is often less disruptive than a dozen sets of bastards all exploiting the local poor and fighting each other (usually by conscripting the local poor) in an effort to get to the point where they can please themselves.

Someone taking the initiative to enforce central authority and punish the guilty, regardless of class, is an even greater step up, and people are often willing to endure great oppression in exchange for this extremely minor concession on the part of the rulers. And during a time of national crisis, these minor concessions are lionized to an even greater degree by those who attempt to address said crisis (in Vlad the Impaler’s case, Ottoman imperialism).

Vladdy boy murders people in brutal ways? So would bandits and foreign armies, say ordinary folk, at least Vlad only murders his enemies (which mostly does not include ordinary folk). Vlad doesn’t respect normal customs of courts and law? Courts and law are only occasionally helpful to the poor in feudal societies; it is the rich who suffer its lack (though even that is not ideal, as courts and law for the rich help establish reliable economic behavior, but that’s another discussion entirely). Vlad wars often? At least he wars against invaders and bandits as well, not putting his feuds with other nobles above all else. Vlad taxes us? At least the rich are taxed as well, instead of the whole burden falling on the poor, as French peasantry (rightly) complained of during the Hundred Years’ War.

Vlad the Impaler almost certainly was cruel (if not necessarily to the degree his enemies portrayed him as), and inventively so. Yet simultaneously, his widespread support amongst Wallachians was probably genuine, because they understood just how fucking awful the average alternative was. If Vlad was, as the contemporary accounts portray, cruel, single-minded, and tyrannical; then the fact that he demanded obedience from the rich just as the poor, punished genuine wrongdoing, and was active and involved in the affairs of the nation and not just his own petty courtly amusements, was enough to earn him positive sentiment as well.

We often don’t realize just how fucking low the bar for good governance is in past societies. Even strict despotism can seem preferable to a ‘lax’ feudal status quo.