It is only natural that shortly before Halloween I would come across a name to look up. Naturally I am fascinated with serial killers. I am into the lives of ancient royalty (since we all know that clearly they were messed up individuals). I find biographies to be like a drug. You get to find out someone's inner most secrets. You want more and more of it till you can get your fill. This name is no different. I've spent all night reading numerous websites till I wasn't able to really find a whole lot of new information. I have literally spent the entire night, well into the early hours of the morning, researching and writing this topic. I'm sure I'll have nightmares when I do go to sleep.
****In case you want the short version of this story, go here and watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CNTV8yoNRQ
So let me begin.
The Countess Elizabeth Bathory was born August 7th 1560 in the modern day Slovadkia. She was born of noble blood. Her name was well known through out the area. She grew up to be a highly educated young woman when most rulers were either illiterate (since it was usually the Monks who knew how to read and write) or could only speak one language. She managed to learn how to speak four languages which included her native language (which I would assume was a version of Hungarian), Latin, German and Greek. She was also interested in science and astronomy.
Although she was highly educated, she went through a lot of fits and violent outrages. At the age or four or five, she had epileptic seizures, which neurological disorders and psychotic behavior later in life. It is suspected, now, that she was bipolar. She was raised by her governess and because of that, she was never disciplined. She grew up to believe that she could do whatever she wanted and there would be no moral consequence to her actions. When she was 14, she became pregnant by a peasant. I never found out what happened to that pregnancy, or if this event was merely a rumor, but her parents married her off when she was 15 to disguise a conspiracy although some sites state she was married at an earlier age. Since most of the sites state she was married at 15, I will use the "majority rules" statement and use that age.
Elizabeth married Ferenc Nadasdy on May 8th, 1575 shortly before her 15th birthday. He was 26. (In other texts, it says that they were engaged when she was 11 and he was 16. It is hard to tell which text is correct.) Rather than take on his name, he allowed her to keep her name, something he took on himself because her name was of such nobility. He was a sadistic man, as some soldiers were during those times. Wars in the 16th century were very violent affairs and she picked up on his mannerisms. He was very harsh on the servants and even on to Elizabeth. She was introduced to a lot of his ways of punishment. Ferenc was said to be one of the cruelest men of his time. He was described as being a savage man. He was often away on war or business for the first ten years of the marriage and she bore no children until he returned.
Her life there was supposed to be very boring. Being a bored teenage girl, she found things to peek her interest. Having grown up as a vindictive girl, she began to gather resources to feed her curiosity for the sinister arts.
It is rumored that Elizabeth dabbled in the occult and studied many forms of torture while her husband was away as well as when he had returned. Perhaps that was influenced by Aunt Klara who clearly was a bad influence. Her aunt was supposed to be bisexual and always had an abundance of women around for Elizabeth to toy around with at a young age. Since she often visited her aunt, I suppose her lesbianism occurred often. Rumors spread that she eloped with a dark stranger, said to be the devil himself, and disappeared for a short time. Her husband forgave her for her disappearance however she couldn't stand her mother-in-law. Although her mother-in-law is rarely mentioned, it is clear that she had a hatred for her.
While her husband was away, it was her job to provide health care. At first she was very much into women's rights. It was her duty to take in peasants and serfs as well as destitute women who were beaten and raped by Ottoman soldiers. She was also in charge of running the estate and about 17 villages. Those were immense responsibilities for a girl her age. Eventually she stopped doing this and became in charge of disciplining the servants in ways that would be considered sadistic today. Because of her hatred for her mother-in-law, she rebelled by torturing her servants. It wasn't until ten years after the marriage that The Countess was able to have children. She had six, although two died early on. Even though she was cruel to people of lower class, she was a good and devoted mother, which wasn't unusual at that time since royalty treated immediate family, especially their own blood line, with the the utmost care.
It was around her 40th birthday (some sites say 43rd birthday) when things began to go south. Her husband died in battle and she was a widow. Elizabeth's mother-in-law was sent away and she no longer had anyone to report to. Her behavior began to change even more drastically. She was always known throughout her life for being one of the most beautiful women in the land and she was said to be extremely vain. She would change clothing six times a day and would spend hours a day looking at her reflection. She really didn't even care for her husband so she was planning on his replacement before he died. There wasn't any remorse when he did die of stab wounds in 1602. When she realized that she needed a new husband, she began to panic. It was then that she realized that her youth was escaping her. That was the time that she upped her antics and her behavior truly become deplorable and atrocious. Her dabbling in the occult increased.
Some of what I read said that what happened next lasted over twenty years but most of what I read says that it started in 1602 and didn't end until she was caught in 1610. What is known is that she was always cruel to her help. She always had young servant girls around her to remind her of youth and beauty. Whenever she would sit and think about her fading beauty, she would go into a rage and torture her young servants more than than she usually did. Elizabeth even went so far as to sew a girl's mouth shut because she spoke too much. Of course she wrote to her husband, while he was still alive, and complained about severe head and eye pain, which now could be interpreted as a migraine. Perhaps she sewn the girl's mouth shut because of her migraine pain (as if she didn't have enough problems).
Before her husband died, she had a whip that her husband fashioned that had three metal claws on the end. It was designs with the thoughts of not only tearing the flesh of whoever it touched, but potentially damaging vital organs, causing the victim to surely die faster than a regular whip would. It was created to get information out of his enemies.Elizabeth's aunt, Klara, was said to have taught her the art of flagellation; whipping as a form of torture. As cruel as her husband was, he never used this device. He left it behind because it disgusted him so. However, she didn't find it so disgusting for she often used it whenever she was in one of her fits of rage. Rather than whipping her victims along the back and buttocks, she would whip them in the front so that she could see their faces cringe. She also had a cage that was called The Iron Virgin that was shaped in a womanly figure but had blades inside of it. These were just a few of the medieval torture devices she used.
What you must keep in mind is that once her husband died, she ended up having four accomplices that helped her do all of these deeds. She did not do everything on her own. She also didn't come up with all these ideas on her own, although it seems as though she was to be held accountable for a large portion of her actions.
The discovery of blood truly was by accident. When a servant pulled Elizabeth's hair too hard while brushing it, she smacked the girl and drew blood. When Elizabeth noticed a small amount of the girl's blood on her hand, she though that she saw her skin firm up. Within the castle were groups of witches, seers, alchemists and sorcerers that she housed to save them from being killed. She used their talents to benefit her. She felt that her youth and beauty was more important than ever to find a new husband and to secure her reign. With youth, she could regain political power and would have a husband to play into her vanity. Without both, she would lose her chance to be King and would lose the chance to have a lover forever. She went to one of the alchemists and presented the theory of using virginal blood to restore what she felt she was losing. In fear of what would happen, the alchemist agreed that it was a suitable solution. Perhaps this was when Elizabeth's mental state truly declined. I'm not sure what she saw but she believed that the blood of these young girls was restoring everything. Keep in mind that a most girls were married off around the age of 14 in those days. In order to get a virginal girl, I'd assume they were around the ages of 12-14.
The slow tortures and deaths of young girls increased in number. This is partly because The Countess began to have female lovers to influence her more than her aunt did. Elizabeth was said to have lost her humanity all together. She would hang girls and drain their blood till they died. The girls would be hung upside down with their ankles in chains. Their throats would be slit and the blood would drain into her tub so she could bathe in it while the blood was still warm, thickened, sticky state. If a girl had exceptional beauty, Elizabeth would not only drink the blood from a goblet but would attack the girl. She would bite chunks of skin off. Allegedly she became so enraged and so "dependent" on the blood that she would slit a young girl's throat and drink the blood from her neck as it ran out.
For a time, The Countess was giving the girls proper burials by a local Protestant minister. In fact, she went out of her way. Even when the minister threatened to stop, she made sure it happened. She ended up threatening him in order to stop him from spreading the news of what was going on within the palace because too many girls were coming to him dying of "mysterious causes." It didn't last long because the frenzy to quench her thirst for this rejuvenating blood caused her to eventually not care and dispose of the bodies in haphazard manners throughout the castle borders and countryside.
After five years in 1609 (although some would argue it was 1607), the blood of the peasants weren't making as big of a difference as Elizabeth had liked. Influenced by a lover, she became convinced that they were of poor blood and she wanted blood more rich to satisfy her needs. She created a school that would cater to furthering the education of young socialites so that they could take the chance to gain political power if that chance presented itself. She took in 25 young girls....at a time. She continued with all of her rituals and became very careless. This is where it gets fuzzy. In some articles it was said that a girl managed to escape and reach the proper authorities. In others it is presented that Elizabeth dumped the blood drained bodies of four young girls. Some local peasants took the bodies to be identified and word spread to the Emperor, Matthias II, who then took matter into his own hands. Elizabeth never took into account that these girls had wealthy and powerful families. The weird thing is that no one was inclined to address all the peasant girls who disappeared and died because they weren't of any importance. Only the girls of proper families were discussed.The mystery of the missing girls was soon solved. The Castle Csejthe was raided on December 30th 1610.
Before the trial could commence, they found the missing girls. Some were thrown into the fireplace. Some had their hands burnt and breasts bitten off. Some didn't have eyes or arms. A few were still alive.They exhumed the bodies of 50 girls, many of them had many piercings and puncture wounds to drain the blood. The Emperor ordered a public trial of the Countess and all involved in 1610.
While Elizabeth was of noble blood and could not be executed, her followers were burned at the stake. Before that could happen, the women were ordered to have their fingers torn off by burning hot pinchers since it was their hands that were the instruments of torture. Word spread about the trial and it became a public spectacle. She was charged, but never convicted, for the death of 80 definite girls, but also for the possible deaths of a total of over 600 girls. Supposedly what sealed her fate was the fact that she had a journal that listed the names of every single girl. From what I read, that journal is locked away in a state archive in Budapest and is unable to be translated due to the poor quality of handwriting, damage, the grotesque actions depicted and the age of the language. One thing that I discovered was said in this diary was if a girl didn't endure the tortures well and died too quickly, she was marked as being "too small".
Witnesses began to describe, in detail, what had happened during those years. Some 300 witnesses came forward. It was the girls who made the biggest difference. They announced that they were tortured for weeks and sometimes months. During the trial, a list of the tortures that were inflicted by Elizabeth and her followers included:
-severe beatings over extended periods of time
-burning or mutilation of hands, faces, and genitalia
-biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other bodily parts such as breasts
-freezing victims to death by pouring cold water over their naked bodies during the winter until the water hardened
-covering girls in honey and tying them outside to be nibbled on by bugs and stung by bees
-severe beatings, administered by Elizabeth herself, who reportedly beat girls about the face “till their bones broke”.
-applying red-hot irons to the soles of girls’ feet.
-mutilation of the face, hands and genitals, including cutting off or splitting open the fingers,
-sexual abuse of the most depraved nature
-placing oily rages between a girls legs and setting them on fire.
-mock “surgery”, including forcing one girl to strip a piece of flesh off her own arm.
abductions. If girls did not come willingly, they were beaten unconscious and carried to the castle.
-biting off their flesh, sometimes until they died. Bites were taken off the cheek, the shoulder, and any part where there were a lot of flesh. Witnesses report she would have male servants eat their flesh.
-stabbed with needles and scissors
-forcing girls into small cages filled with spikes, or tying them up to the walls in the dungeon.
-starvation.
She really did have political standing. She was in line to be the King of Hungary since her husband died and I didn't read of her ever marrying again. Her uncle was named to be the King of Poland. Her family even provided two of the most important ruling princes.
Rather than being executed, which wasn't allowed due to her political status, she was ordered to "house arrest". She sentenced her to spend the rest of her years locked up inside a room. Some of what I read states that it was her room that was completely bricked over with a slot large enough to slide food in. Other say it was the dungeon that she used to torture her victims. She died four years later, at the age of 54, due to mysterious circumstances. They aren't sure the exact date she died because they found a plate of food was never eaten. She was discovered dead on August 21st 1614. Throughout the years she was imprisoned, it was said that she never uttered any words of remorse or regret.
I read numerous websites over the past five hours and will include the websites:
http://steffmetal.com/countess-elizabeth-bathory/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory
http://articles.mibba.com/Biographies/3211/Serial-Killer-of-the-1600s-Elizabeth-Bathory
http://bathory.org/shyla.html
http://www.abacom.com/~jkrause/bathory.html
http://www.whataslacker.com/backdoor/elizabeth_bathory/
