Elizabeth Bathory - The Bloody Countess? Or victim of a Witch Hunt?

Elizabeth Bathory. Source: wikicommons

With the horrors of the scale and depravity of the Epstein trafficking ring finally being exposed involving so many high profile male and female figures, it will come as no surprise that privileged men and women have committing atrocities (and getting away with it lightly) for centuries. A very famous example is Elizabeth Bathory. Accused of heinous crimes, this Hungarian noblewoman’s legacy is very very dark. But is it even true? Lets dive in for this month's Herstory.

Born into Power

Erzebet Bathori (Hungarian) was born in 1560 to a powerful and noble lineage. She was the niece of the Prince of Transylvania and spent much of her early life surrounded by the trappings of wealth, privilege, and superior education. But the rumours about her unconventionality start from a young age. She was said to have given birth at the age of 13 to a bastard child by a peasant boy. The child was allegedly 'taken away’. These rumours didn't emerge until after her death, and so are unreliable and may simply be part of the smear campaign against her in light of later events, as we shall see.

At 14 Elizabeth had an arranged marriage to Count Ferenc Nadasdy. With the marriage came land and properties, including villages. Together, the couple had at least 5 children. When Elizabeth's husband the Count went off to war against the Ottomans, Elizabeth managed and defended the family’s business affairs and estates. Part of her responsibility was also taking care of the sick and wounded people of the villages during the war, which lasted from 1593 to 1606.

It was during this period that rumours started percolating about nefarious goings-on in the Bathory castles. Village girls and peasants working at the Bathory estates started going missing. But peasants often gossip, and of course nothing was taken seriously. It wasn't until higher class people started corroborating these claims that things started to happen.

Ferenc Nadasdy, Elizabeth's husband (WikiCommons)

Castle of Horrors

Three years after her husband died in 1604, Elizabeth opened a ‘Gynaecaeum’. This was like a finishing school for high born women to learn courtly manners. Noble families sent their daughters to be instructed by Bathory, On the face of it, something like this would bring in some much needed funds for Bathory and her family following the war and death of her husband. Being a noblemwoman, perhaps she just wanted to help other women, right? Apparently not. Later it was alleged that she had opened this school simply to have access to more young women to abuse and kill, after the peasants stopped sending their daughters to work for her. 

Noble girls sent to the Gynaecaeum started to go missing. Noblewomen provided witness statements testifying that their children had been tortured and killed within the Gynaecaeum walls. 

Castle staff also corroborated these accusations and said they had seen bodies buried in shallow graves and then dug up by animals. So many noble families were coming forward with these outrageous and shocking claims that in 1610 the Holy Roman Emperor ordered that Elizabeth Bathory be investigated and that a trial be held. That year, 52 witness statements were collected. By 1611, it was over 300.  Bathory was arrested in 1610 along with five servants who were accused of being her accomplices. When her castle was raided, dead bodies of girls were allegedly found. 

Holy Roman Emperor Matthias said the following of the proceedings in a letter to the chief investigator after her arrest:

“…that (Elizabeth Bathory) has put behind any reverence for God and man, driven by animal crudity and diabolical influence, killing more than 300 innocent virgins and women, of both noble and lower levels, who served her as maids, and of whom no such action was deserved, without any involvement of the judiciary, in a most monstrous and cruel manner, their bodies mutilated, burned with hot irons, their flesh ripped out, roasted on the fire and this roasted flesh then allowed to be served.”

Two trials were held in Vienna and a mixture of witnesses across the class system were brought foreard. Peasants from the surrounding villages, testified they had seen girls beaten and with flesh cut from their bodies and needles stuck into them. Victims were allegedly imprisoned in Elizabeth's castle and starved, exposed to the elements, tortured and mutilated. Servants from the castle provided first hand witness accounts of the torture and abuse. It seemed to be a regular occurrence that young girls and women were stripped naked, beaten, tortured and then killed. Some accounts even detailed flesh being eaten. Bathory’s five servants, arrested alongside her, were tortured into confessing that they assisted Bathory in her crimes. Bathory was not tortured, but blamed the servants for the crimes, and said that she had been afraid of them. 

Two of the servant girls that confessed had their fingers cut off in punishment and then were burned alive. Another escaped and was then burned alive when recaptured. One male servant, who was believed to be younger and therefore less culpable, was beheaded and his body burned. And the last female servant was imprisoned for life when it was revealed she had been abused and coerced by others. 

It was never confirmed for definite how many Bathory murdered. Based on witness testaments, it could be between 200-600!! She could well be one of the most prolific female serial killers of all time - but as we dont know the true number of those she killed, she remains an enigma to The Guiness world Records (!) 

Elizabeth was never executed. Instead, she was given life imprisonment (house arrest) at one of her luxury castles. She died aged 54 and her remains were interred at Ecsed Castle, the Bathory family home. 

The ruins of Csejte Castle where Bathory was detained until she died (Wikicommons)

Satanic Panic or Sadism? 

The story of Elizabeth Bathory is one that is mired in sensationalist and macabre folklore that has been embellished over the centuries. The romantic literature of the 18th and 19th centuries popularised the notion of Elizabeth as the Bloody Countess, engaging in satanic rituals such as bathing in her victims’ blood to keep her youthful. None of the trial statements contain any references to blood baths though, so why spread this propaganda? In fact, how much of Elizabeth's story is actually true? 

It has been widely accepted that Elizabeth was a sadistic serial killer, but was she? Really? It is very hard to know how truthful the claims of torture and murder are without access to bodies or reliable autopsy reports. Obviously in the historical case of Bathory, we only have trial records and witness statements. 

A body and several ‘dying girls’ were recorded as found at the scene, but, as we’ve seen, it was Bathory’s responsibility to take care of the wounded and sick from neighbouring villages. As a female landowner, it was the custom to only take care of women. So it is very plausible that she would have lots of dead, dying and injured women in her castle. How do we know they were dying at her hand? Or from injuries sustained in the war or elsewhere? 

This is exactly the point made by one of the investigators. In fact, the two investigators who were charged with making the arrest differ in their accounts of what they found at the Castle, with one saying he found numerous girls’ bodies, and the other saying they were victims of war that had been brought to the castle to be treated.

The investigator who claimed he had found evidence of murdered girls would have benefited from Bathory being disgraced. He wanted his son to become the prince of Transylvania, and was therefore in direct competition with Bathory’s son.  What’s more - surely if she’d killed in the hundreds, those numbers would have been found on the properties - Bodies on that scale would not have been easily disposed of in the days. 

The servants arrested with Bathory were tortured into their confessions, which instantly discredits their reliability. But plenty of witnesses were NOT tortured into corroborating the accounts, including nobles. So why would they potentially lie? 

One of many screen depictions of Bathory. This film is from 2008.

A witch hunt? 

Scholars in recent years have suggested that Bathory might’ve been the victim of a political and religious stitch up and land grab. The late 1500’s/early 1600’s is widely known as the ‘Age of Anxiety’ and much of Europe was embroiled in war and religio-political unrest. Hungary was not exempt. There was the ‘Long War’ with the Ottoman Empire, the spread of prostentatism throughout Europe, and the expanse of the Hapsburg Empire. The Hapsburgs and their ambition to centralise political power was challenged by the traditional authority and wealth of the noble families of Hungary; of which the Bathorys were among the most important. The Bathorys held vast land and fortresses and could definitely have raised an army to challenge the Hapsburgs and indeed, Emperor Matthias’s throne. Plus, they were Calvinists, while the Hapsburgs were catholics. It was Emperor Matthias who initially started the investigation against Bathory, and - most crucially of all - he owed her a huge debt that was conveniently cancelled after her arrest. 

We see a similar trajectory with the disgrace and execution of the Knights Templar in the 1300s. The King of France owed them huge debts, and upon his orders they were eventually accused of satanic worship among other ungodly crimes, tortured into confessing then burned alive and disbanded. Similar accusations were also used against accused witches, jews and other ‘heretics’ in the early modern period leading up to the case of Bathory. 

It has certainly not escaped my attention that Bathorys crimes were at the peak of the European early modern witch trials and satanic panic. The accusations against her tie in with many of the accusations levied against supposed witches and heretics: the cannibalism, the torture, the abuse of ‘virgins’. 

So could it be that Elizabeth Bathory was completely innocent and hideously framed, scapegoated and then maligned for good just because the Hapsburgs wanted her land and power ? Could misogyny also be playing a part? Particularly at the height of the witch craze paranoia? 

Well possibly, this argument has been put forward by recent biographer Dr Annouchka Bayley, whose book about Bathory posits her as a radical feminist, educating women at her ‘Gynaecaeum’ and therefore being a subversive figure who might be targeted during the age of anxiety. 

But there are a few problems with the theory that she was entirely innocent.  Why would so many peasants and servants, with nothing to gain, lie? (Or did they have something to gain? Were they being bribed themselves?) 

Also, most of the independent witnesses were not tortured. And importantly,  if no crimes had been committed at all,  why would Bathory lay the blame at her servants feet? And therefore admit that crimes had happened? 

Bathory was also never actually executed, and so her lands were not forfeited. She was able to make a will which left her land and property to her children, therefore continuing in the Bathory name. So there was no financial benefit to external parties.

Why wasn’t she executed? We see time and time again the nobility escaping punishment that is gleefully meted out to those of lower classes for similar crimes. It seems the Bathory name still held some sway. Letters between Bathory’s offspring and the investigators reveal a pact not to disgrace the entire House of Bathory with the scandal by publicly torturing and executing her. So she was simply banished away, whilst her servants were tortured and executed horribly.   In the modern day, we are no strangers to this trend of class-based ‘justice’. 

As with so many stories, I'm inclined to think the truth is a lot less interesting than the propaganda. If Elizabeth Bathory was guilty of crimes, we simply don't know how many victims she had and how far she went. But its way more fun,  and certainly suits certain zeitgeists and narratives, to say that she engaged in satanic and ritualistic atrocities. 

And as regards the blood baths - gender norms in the 18th and 19th centuries didn’t allow for women to commit such horrific crimes out of pure sadism. So the ‘vanity’ myth was perpetuated to somehow make the story more palatable to audiences at the time. 

When Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897, comparisons with the Transylvanian-based bloody murderess were instantly made. Evil queens in children’s fairytales have reputedly been based on her.  and her legacy lives on in popular culture to this day. 

But of course, if Dr Bayley’s theories are to be believed, maybe she was entirely innocent. Maybe she smuggled these young, unmarriageable noblewomen out of the country during the wars to safety. Maybe she was a feminist radical heroine horribly maligned by external societal forces. That certainly would not surprise me. But I guess we’ll never know the real truth, and Bathory’s story will continue to entrance and inspire us.

 Disney's Evil Queen in Snow White is inspired by Bathory.