DARK HISTORY WITH DEVEN: THE BLOOD COUNTESS

Ninetoes fills in for Deven this week and recounts the dark history surrounding the infamous Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory. He learned not all legends are true, and that the truth is much darker.

Hey there, history lovers! It is your old pal, Ninetoes, coming to you from Ninetoes HQ. Today, I am looking at Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I have coffee in my system and my thinking cap on, so let’s get to it!

Countess Elizabeth Bathory (August 07, 1560-August 21, 1614) was born into a world of wealth and privilege. As a young woman, she learned to speak German, Hungarian, Latin, and Greek. She was raised a Calvinist Protestant. Some scholars believe she was trained to be cruel by her family, which is given as an explanation for her cruelty later on in life. As a child, she suffered seizures that were attributed to epilepsy (at the time called falling sickness), and one of the treatments was rubbing the blood of a non-sufferer on her lips.

In 1574, Elizabeth was engaged to Count Ferenc Nadasdy, a member of the Nadasdy Family. It was a politically arranged marriage. They were married on May 8, 1575, at the palace of Varanno. The couple had five children. Ferenc Nasdasdy died on January 4, 1604. Before he died, he entrusted his wife and heirs to Gyorgy Thurzo, the man who would eventually lead the investigation into Elizabeth Bathory’s crimes.

Rumors of Bathory’s atrocities had spread throughout the kingdom between 1602 and 1604. A Lutheran minister, Istvan Magyari, had made complaints, both public and at the court in Vienna, against Elizabeth. In 1610, Gyorgy Thurzo was ordered to investigate Elizabeth by Matthias II. In March 1610, Thurzo ordered two notaries, Andras Keresztury and Mozes Cziraky, to collect any evidence against Elizabeth. By October 1610, they had collected 52 witness statements.

By 1611, they had collected 300 witness statements.

According to Dorrthea Szentes (an accomplice in Bathory’s crimes), Bathory would shove needles into the fingers of some of her victims. Bathory would then comment, “If it hurts the whore, then she can pull them out.” The problem was that if the girl pulled the needles out, Bathroy would cut off her fingers.

Some of the other atrocities said to occur at Bathory’s castles were beatings with a club; needles inserted into lips, arms, shoulders and fingernails; and flesh cut out from buttocks and the shoulders to be roasted; red hot pokers and irons were used to scorch arms and abdomens; knives were plunged into victims arms and feet, and fingers were cut off with scissors and shears. Some girls were made to stand naked in the freezing cold and then doused with water until they froze to death.

Three men provided firsthand accounts of Bathory’s atrocities. They were Jakab Szivassy, Gergely Paztory, and Benedek Deseo. Unlike other witnesses, these men were not tortured to give confessions. Szivassy and Deseo were around Bathory the most at Castle Cjesthe. Deseo testified that Bathory took a shoemaker’s daughter named Illonka, stripped her naked, took a knife, and, beginning at the fingers, she shoved the knife up the girl’s arms, then flogged her over and over. She then took a candle and burned the girls’ exposed wounds, and continued this until she took the girls’ lives. This is just a sample of the activities Elizabeth Bathory engaged in with her many victims.

On December 31, 1610, Thurzo went to Castle Csejte to arrest Elizabeth Bathory and four of her servants (who were accused of being her accomplices): Dorottya Szentes, Ilona Jo, Katarina Benicka, and Janos Ujvary. Bathory claimed her arrest was politically motivated and blamed two reverends and one pastor. She then went on to blame her accomplices for the atrocities committed at the castle. When asked why she did not stop her accomplices, Bathory claimed to be afraid of them.

Two trials were held. The first on January 02, 1611, and the second on January 07, 1611. Seventeen witnesses (the four accomplices among them) testified that they were acting on Bathory’s orders. After the trial, they were executed. Jo and Szentes had their fingers torn out with red-hot pincers and were burned alive. Janos Ujvary was beheaded and burned.

On January 25, 1611, Elizabeth Bathory was sentenced to remain at Castle Csejte for the remainder of her life.

Elizabeth Bathory inspired many stories. Most popular among them was that she would bathe in the blood of her virgin victims to retain her youthful appearance. This legend appeared in print in 1729 in the Tragica Historia written by Jesuit scholar Laszlo Turoczi. This story came into question when the witness accounts were published in 1817.

The highest number of victims attributed to Elizabeth Bathory is 650, but the number kept fluctuating between witnesses, so no one knows for sure.

Darren “Ninetoes” Perdue is a book and media reviewer. When he is not reading, he is watching true crime shows, cooking for his family, or working on a plan for universal domination. If you see him on his porch, say hi. He does not bite…much.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.