Elizabeth Báthory
Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed was a Hungarian noblewoman and serial killer from the powerful House of Báthory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Hungary. Báthory and four of her servants were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women from 1590 to 1610. Bathory and her cohorts were charged for 80 counts of murder and were convicted. Her servants were put on trial and convicted. The servants were executed, whereas Báthory was imprisoned within the Castle of Csejte until she died in her sleep in 1614.
According to scholars such as Michael Farin, the accusations against Báthory were supported by testimony from more than 300 individuals, some of whom described physical evidence and the presence of mutilated dead, dying and imprisoned girls found at the time of her arrest. Other scholars suggest that the accusations were a spectacle to destroy her family's influence in the region, which was considered a threat to the political interests of her neighbours, including the Habsburg empire.
Stories about Báthory quickly became part of national folklore. Legends describing her vampiric tendencies, such as the tale that she bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth, were based on rumours and only recorded as supposedly factual over a century after her death. Although these stories were repeated by at least three historians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they are considered unreliable by modern historians. Some insist that Elizabeth's story inspired Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, although Stoker's notes on the novel provided no direct evidence to support this hypothesis. Nicknames and literary epithets attributed to her include Blood Countess and Countess Dracula.
There are important flaws regarding modern scholarship’s attempt to paint Elizabeth Bathory as a victim of a witch-hunt. Firstly, Elizabeth was charged predominantly with murder and torture, not witchcraft. Secondly, on the night of the raid, Elizabeth Bathory was taken into custody along with her four accomplices. Elizabeth had accused two reverends and one pastor for the reason of her arrest, after a long conversation where Bathory attempted to blame her accomplices for the dead bodies being found. She added this statement after Pastor Barosius had asked her why she did not stop her accomplices from committing the tortures and murders. She said, "I did it... Because even I myself was afraid of them". This statement was confessed by Bathory herself and was not extracted under torture.
Critically, there were a handful of individuals who provided first-hand accounts of Bathory's crimes at the trial. Three of these individuals included Jakab Szivassy, Gergely Paztory, and Benedek Deseo. Deseo was the head of "The Lord's staff" at Castle Cjesthe and was responsible for operations at the castle. Since Deseo and Szivassy were around Bathory the most, they gave the most detailed confessions of what they witnessed at their time of service at Castle Cjesthe. It is important to note that these three men were not tortured into confessions, unlike Bathory's accomplices. After Deseo was sworn in, he testified that Bathory "took a shoemaker's daughter named 'Illonka', stripped her naked and, in this way began to cruelly torment her by taking a knife, and beginning with the fingers, shoved the knife into both arms up the arms, then flogging her over again, then took a burning candle to her and burned her skin, and continued to torment her until she put an end to her life". He also testified that Bathory would "stick a sewing needle in her victims arms and use it to cut her way up the arm of a girl who could not 'sew'."
Gergely Paztory was a court judge at Castle Sarvar for Elizabeth Bathory and was forty years old when he was sworn in and testified. He testified that a "young woman from Bratislava named Modl accompanied Bathory and Paztory on a trip to Fuzer". He continued, "The Lady Bathory forced her to dress up and act like a young girl, Modl pleaded for forgiveness as she could not act like a young girl since she is already married and has a child". Following this, in Jakab Szivassy's testimony, Jakab added that the "young woman called Modl, since she did not want to be a girl, Bathory had cut out her flesh and roasted it". These testimonies were collected by Mozes Cziraky and was published on 14 December 1611, in his report on the orders of King Matthias II.
Biography
Early life and education
Elizabeth was born in 1560 on a family estate in Nyírbátor, Royal Hungary, and spent her childhood at Ecsed Castle. Her father was Baron George VI Báthory, of the Ecsed branch of the family, brother of Andrew Bonaventura Báthory, who had been ruling Voivode of Transylvania. Her paternal great-grandparents were Anna Radziwiłł, a member of the influential Polish-Lithuanian Radziwiłł family, and Konrad the Red, Duke of Masovia and Warsaw, who was a member of the Piast dynasty. Her mother was Baroness Anna Báthory of Somlyó, member of the other line of the Báthory family, daughter of Stephen Báthory of Somlyó, Palatine of Hungary. Through her mother, Elizabeth was the niece of Stephen Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, who became the ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. She had several siblings; her older brother Stephen served as a Judge Royal of Hungary.Báthory was raised a Calvinist Protestant, and learned Latin, German, Hungarian, and Greek as a young woman. Born into a privileged noble family, she was endowed with wealth, education, and a prominent social rank. A proposal made by some sources in order to explain Báthory's cruelty later in her life is that she was trained by her family to be cruel.
As a child, Báthory had multiple seizures that may have been caused by epilepsy. At the time, symptoms relating to epilepsy were diagnosed as falling sickness and treatments included rubbing blood of a non-sufferer on the lips of an epileptic or giving the epileptic a mix of a non-sufferer's blood and piece of skull as their episode ended.
At the age of 13, before her first marriage, Báthory allegedly gave birth to a child. The child, said to have been fathered by a peasant boy, was supposedly given away to a local woman who was trusted by the Báthory family. The woman was paid for her actions, and the child was taken to Wallachia. Evidence of this pregnancy came up long after Elizabeth's death, through rumours spread by peasants; therefore, the validity of the rumour is often disputed.
Marriage and land ownership
In 1574, Báthory was engaged to Count Ferenc Nádasdy, a member of the Nadasdy family. It was a political arrangement within the circles of the aristocracy. Nádasdy was the son of Baron Tamás Nádasdy de Nádasd et Fogarasföld and his wife, Orsolya Kanizsai.On 8 May 1575, Báthory and Nádasdy were married at the palace of Varannó. The marriage resulted in combined land ownership in both Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary.
Nádasdy's wedding gift to Báthory was his household in the Castle of Csejte, situated in the Little Carpathians near Vág-Ujhely and Trencsén. At the time, King Maximilian II owned the castle, but made Ferenc's mother, Orsolya Kanizsai, official steward in 1569. Nádasdy finally bought the castle in 1602 from Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, but during his constant military campaign, Elizabeth maintained the castle in his absence, along with the Csejte country house and seventeen adjacent villages.
After the wedding, the couple lived in Nadasdy's castle at Sárvár.
In 1578, three years into their marriage, Nádasdy became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. Báthory managed business affairs and the family's multiple estates during the war. This role usually included responsibility for the Hungarian and Slovak people, providing medical care during the Long War, and Báthory was charged with the defence of her husband's estates, which lay on the route to Vienna. The threat of attack was significant, for the village of Csejte had previously been plundered by the Ottomans while Sárvár, located near the border that divided Royal Hungary and Ottoman-occupied Hungary, was in even greater danger.
Báthory's daughter, Anna Nádasdy, was born in 1585 and was later to become the wife of Nikola VI Zrinski. Báthory's other known children include Orsolya Nádasdy who would later become the wife of István II Benyó; Katalin Nádasdy ; András Nádasdy ; and Pál Nádasdy, father of Franz III Nádasdy, who was one of the leaders of the Magnate conspiracy against Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. Some chronicles also indicate that the couple had another son, named Miklós Nádasdy, who married Zsuzsanna Zrinski. However, this cannot be confirmed, and it could be that he was simply a cousin or died young, as he is not named in Báthory's will from 1610. György Nádasdy is also supposedly the name of one of the deceased Nádasdy infants, but this cannot be confirmed. All of Elizabeth's children were cared for by governesses, as Báthory herself had been.
Ferenc Nádasdy died on 4 January 1604 at the age of 48. Although the exact nature of the illness which led to his death is unknown, it seems to have started in 1601 and initially caused debilitating pain in his legs. From that time, he never fully recovered, and in 1603 became permanently disabled. He had been married to Báthory for 29 years. Before dying, Nádasdy entrusted his heirs and widow to György Thurzó, who would eventually lead the investigation into Báthory's crimes.
Accusations
Between 1602 and 1604, after rumours of Báthory's atrocities had spread throughout the kingdom, Lutheran minister István Magyari made complaints against her, both publicly and at the court in Vienna. In 1610, Matthias II assigned György Thurzó, the devoutly Lutheran Palatine of Hungary, to investigate. Thurzó ordered two notaries, András Keresztúry and Mózes Cziráky, to collect evidence in March 1610. By October 1610 they had collected 52 witness statements; by 1611, that number had risen to over 300.Tamás Nyereghjárto was 35 years old, when he was sworn in and interrogated in the town of Beckov. He stated that he saw a girl in Újhely who was being medically treated because the flesh on her right hand between the fingers and the arm was torn out and the tendon was destroyed. The wife of Janós Kun, named Katalin, Katalin who was 36 years old testified that she had also seen this girl in Újhely, and testified similarly to Tamás, but added that the flesh had also been cut out between the victims shoulders, and that the right hand of this girl was "completely destroyed". Then, Martinus Zamechnyk, who was 50 years old, testified that he had asked this Girl from Újhely "Who did that to your hand", the girl had replied that, "The Lady Widow Nadasdy had done it", referring to Bathory. This testimony was taken by András of Keresztúr, and was published on 28 July 1611, on the orders of King Matthias II.
According to one of her accomplices, Bathory would stick needles into the fingers of some of her victims. After she did this, Bathory would comment: "If it hurts the whore, then she can pull it out". However, Szentes added that if the girl removed the needle, Bathory would then cut off the finger with a knife.
During the trial, many atrocities were said to have occurred in many of Bathory's castles. These atrocities usually included: Severe beatings with cudgels, needles inserted into lips, arms, shoulders, and fingernails. Flesh cut out from the buttocks and from between the shoulders, and then roasted. Red hot pokers and irons used to scorch the arms and abdomen of the victims, knives plunged into arms and feet, fingers cut off with scissors and sheers, and girls made to stand naked in the winter cold and then doused with water till they froze to death.
Nobleman Martinus Chanady who lived in the town of Beckov was 48 years old when he was sworn in and interrogated. He testified that himself and Janós Belanczky had visited the Lady Widow Nadasdy in Beckov so that Janós could get his sister back from Bathory. Bathory had refused to give Janós' sister back when they asked. Janós then demanded that he at least see her, after waiting for nearly an hour, Janós sister finally appeared but was severely weakened because of the great pain from torture and torment, so much so that she could barely hold out her hands and was bitterly crying and whining. After this it was said that Janós' sister died and was buried in Beckov. Martinus also claimed that he knew Bathory had killed the daughters of a nobleman named Georgius Tukynzky and another nobleman named Benedictus Barbel. Martinus also claimed that he heard how Bathory had torn the flesh of virgins, grounded it into minced meat and allowed to be served before them. This testimony was collected by András of Keresztúr and was published on 28 July 1611, on the orders of King Matthias II.
Bathory is said to have tortured or killed peasants for years; their disappearances were not likely to provoke an investigation. However, she eventually began killing daughters of the lesser gentry, some of whom were sent to live with her hoping to learn from her and benefit from a connection to the high-ranking countess.
Some witnesses named relatives who died while at the gynaeceum. Others reported having seen traces of torture on dead bodies, some of which were buried in graveyards, and others in unmarked locations.