Countess Elizabeth Bathory –August 7, 1560-August 21, 1614—most notably was a Hungarian noblewoman and reputed serial killer from a noble family of Bathory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Bathory (now Hungary, Slovakia and Romania). She is labeled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, despite the precise number of her victims is debated. Bathory and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609. The highest number of victims cited during Bathory’s trial was 650. This number comes from a serving girl named Susannah claiming that Jakab Szilvassy, Countess Bathory’s court official, had seen the figure in on of Bathory’s private books. The book was never revealed and Szilvassy never mentioned it in his testimony. Despite evidence against her, Elizabeth’s family’s importance kept her from facing execution and was imprisoned in December 1610 within Cachtice Castle in Upper Hungary (now Slovakia), and held in solitary confinement in a windowless room until she died four years later.
Stories of her sadistic serial murders are verified by the testimony of more than 300 witnesses and survivors as we as physical evidence and the presence of horribly mutilated dead, dying and imprisoned girls found at the time of her arrest. Stories describing her vampire-like tendencies (most famously the tale that she bated in the blood of virgins to retain her youth) were generally recorded years after her death are considered unreliable. Her story quickly became part of national folklore, and her infamy persists to this day. She is compared to Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia (whom the fictional Count Dracula is partly based); some insist she inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), though there is no evidence supporting this hypothesis. Nicknames and literary epithets attributed to Elizabeth of Bathory include The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula.
Early Years
Elizabeth Bathory was born on the family estate in Nyirbator, Kingdom of Hungary, in 1560 or 1561, and spent her childhood at Ecsed Castle. Her father was George VI Bathory of the Ecsed branch of the family, brother of Andrew Bonaventura Bathory, who had been voivode of Transylvania, while her mother was Baroness Anna Bathory (1539-1570), daughter of Stephen Bathory of Somlyo, another voivode of Transylvania, who was of the Somlyo branch. Through her mother, Elizabeth was the niece of the Hungarian noble Stephen Bathory (1533-1586), the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the prince of Transylvania. Her older brother was Stephen Bathory (1555-1605), who became a judge royal of Hungary.
During Elizabeth’s childhood, she suffered multiple seizures that may have been caused by epilepsy, possibly from the inbreeding of her parents. 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. This may lead to the speculation that Elizabeth’s killings during her later life were part of her efforts to cure the illness she had suffered since childhood, despite there is no hard evidence supporting this.
Other explanations of Elizabeth’s cruelty later in her life may be attributed to Elizabeth trained by her family to be cruel. Stories include Elizabeth as a child witnessing brutal punishments executed by her family’s officers, and being taught by family members involved with Satanism and witchcraft. But there is no hard evidence supporting this either.
Elizabeth, raised a Calvinist Protestant, learned Latin, German, and Greek. Born into a privileged family of nobility, Elizabeth was endowed with wealth, education, and a stellar social position.
When Elizabeth was just 13, before her first marriage, Elizabeth allegedly gave birth to a child, supposedly fathered by a peasant boy, and given to a local woman who was trusted by the Bathory family. The woman was paid for taking the child, taking the child to Wallachia. Evidence of the pregnancy came up long after Elizabeth’s death through rumors spread by peasants, therefore the validity of the rumor disputed.
Married Life
Elizabeth was engaged at age 10 to Ferenc Nadasdy, the son of Baron Tamas Nadasdy de Nadasd et Fogarasfold and Orsolya Kanisay in a political arrangement within the circles of aristocracy. As Elizabeth’s social standing was higher than her husband, she refused to change her last name, and Nadasdy assumed the surname Bathory. The couple married when Elizabeth was 15 (he was 19) at the palace of Vranov nad Toplou (Varrano in Hungarian) on May 8, 1575. About 4,500 guests were invited to the wedding. Elizabeth moved to Nadasdy Castle in Sarvar and spent much time on her own, while her husband studied in Vienna.
Nadasdy’s wedding gift to Bathory was his household, Cachtice Castle (Csejte in Hungarian) in the Little Carpathians near Nove Mesto nad Vahom and Trencin in present-day Slovakia. The castle was bought by his mother in 1569 and given to Nadasdy, who transferred it to Elizabeth during their nuptials, along with the Cachtice country house and 17 adjacent villages. The castle was (and still is) surrounded by a village and agricultural lands, bordered by outcrops of the Little Carpathians.
In 1578, Nadasdy became chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. With her husband away at war, Elizabeth Bathory managed business affairs and the estates. That usually included the responsibility for the Hungarian and Slovak people, even providing medical care.
During the long war (1593-1606), Elizabeth was charged with the defense of her husband’s estates, which lay on the route to Vienna. The threat was significant, with the village of Cachtice had been plundered by the Ottomans while Sarvar, located near the border that divided Royal Hungary and Ottoman-occupied Hungary, was in even greater danger. An educated woman who read and write in four languages, there were several instances where Elizabeth intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was captured by the Turks and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated.
Her daughter, Anna Nadasdy, was born in 1585 and later became the wife of Nikola VI Zrinski. Other known children were Orsolya (Orsika) Nadasdy (1590-unknown) would later become the wife of Istvan II Benyou, Katalin (Kata or Katherina) Nadasdy (1594-unknown), Andras Nadasdy (1596-1603), and Pal (Paul) Nadasdy (1598-1650), father of Ferenc II Nadasdy.
There are chronicles that the couple had a son named Miklos Nadasdy, but this is not confirmed, or he is a cousin or died young, and not named in the 1610 will of the Countess. Gyorgy Nadasdy is also named as one of the deceased Nadasdy infants, but still nothing can be confirmed. All of Elizabeth’s children were cared for by governesses, like Elizabeth had been.
Elizabeth’s husband, Ferenc Nadasdy, died on January 4, 1604 at age 48. The exact nature of his illness leading to his death is unknown, it appears to have begun in 1601, and initially caused debilitating pain in his legs. Never fully recovered, he was permanently disabled in 1603. The couple was married for 29 years at the time of his death. Before his death, Ferenc Nadasdy entrusted his heirs and widow to Gyorgy Thurzo, who led the investigation into Elizabeth’s crimes.
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