Accusation
Investigation
Between 1602 and 1604, rumours of Bathory’s atrocities had spread through the kingdom when Lutheran minister Istvan Magyari made complaints against her, publicly and at the court in Vienna. The Hungarian authorities, after taking time to respond to Magyari’s complaints, assigned Gyorgy Thurzo, by King Matthias II in 1610, of the Palatine in Hungary to investigate. Thurzo ordered two notaries to collect evidence in March 1610. In 1610 and 1611, notaries collected testimony from more than 300 witnesses. Trial witnesses include testimony of four defendants, and thirteen witnesses. Priests, noblemen and commoners were questioned. Witnesses included the castellan and other personnel of Sarvar castle.
According to testimonies, Bathory’s initial victims were serving girls between 10-14 years, daughters of local peasants, many of whom were lured to Cachtice by offers of well paid work as maids and servants in the castle. Later, Elizabeth is said to have begun to kill daughters of lesser gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well. The atrocities were describe most consistently to include severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other body parts, freezing or starving to death. the use of needles was also mentioned by collaborators in court. There were also suspected forms of torture carried out by Elizabeth. According to Budapest archives, the girls were burned with hot tongs and placed in freezing cold water. They were also coved in honey and live ants. Elizabeth is also suspected of cannibalism.
Some witnesses named relatives who died while at the gynaeceum. Others reported having seen traces of torture on dead bodies, some buried in graveyards and other unmarked locations. Two court officials (Benedek Deseo and Jakab Szilvassy) claimed to personally witnessed the Countess torture and kill young servant girls. According to the testimony of the defendants, Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed her victims not only at Cachtice but also on her properties in Sarvar, Nemetkeresztur, Bratislava (Pozsony in Hungarian), and Vienna, and elsewhere in addition to defendants, several people were named for supplying Elizabeth Bathory with young women, procured either by deception or by force.
Arrest
It is said that Thurzo arrived at Cachtice Castle on December 30, 1610 and caught Bathory in the act. Thurzo arrested Bathory and four servants, who were accused of being her accomplices: Dorotya Semtesz, Ilona Jo, Katarina Benicka, and Janos Ujvary (Ibis or Ficko). Thurzo’s men reportedly found one girl dead and one dying and another woman wounded while others were locked up. The countess was put under house arrest.
While it believed that Bathory was caught in the act of torture, there is little evidence to support this. Thurzo made declarations to Bathory’s guests and village people that he caught her red-handed. Bathory was arrested and detained prior to the discovery or presentation of the victims. It seems likely that the idea of Thurzo discovering Bathory covered in blood has been embellished by fictionalized accounts.
Thurzo debated proceedings with Elizabeth’s son Paul and two of her sons-in-law. A trial and execution would have caused a public scandal and disgraced a noble and influential family (which at the time ruled Transylvania), and Elizabeth’s considerable property would have been seized by the crown. Thurzo, along with Paul and her two sons-in-law, originally planned for Elizabeth to be spirited away to a nunnery, but as accounts of the daughters of lesser nobility spread, it was agreed that Elizabeth Bathory should be kept under strict house arrest and that further punishment should be avoided.
King Matthias urged Thurzo to bring Elizabeth to trial and suggested she be sentenced to death, but Thurzo successfully convinced the king that such an act would adversely affect nobility. Thurzo’s motivation for such intervention is debated by scholars. It was decided that Matthias would not have to repay his large debt to Elizabeth.
Trial
Two trials were held in the wake of Bathory’s arrest; the first was held on January 2, 1611 and the second on January 7, 1611. Dozens of witnesses and survivors, possibly up to 35 a day, testified. All but one of the countess’s servants testified against her. in addition to testimony the court examined skeletons and cadaver parts found as evidence.
The exact number of Elizabeth Bathory’s victims are unknown, even with contemporary estimates differing greatly. During the trial, Dorottya Sentes and Ficko reported 36 and 37 victims respectively, during their service with Elizabeth. The other defendants, Ilona Jo and Katarina Benicka, estimated a number to 50 or even higher. Several Sarvar castle personnel estimated the number of bodies removed from the castle around 100-200. A servant who spoke at the trial as a witness was said to have provided a list of more than 650 victims’ names, allegedly in Bathory’s own handwriting. The number 650 could not be proven, the official remained at 80. While the location of the diaries is unknown, 32 letters written by Bathory, are stored in the Hungarian state archives in Budapest.
Prison and Death
Bathory was imprisoned in Cachtice Castle and placed in solitary confinement. Kept bricked in a set of rooms, with only small slits left open for ventilation and passing food, Elizabeth remained there for four years until her death on the evening of August 21, 1614, when Bathory complained to her bodyguard that her hands were cold. He replied, “It’s nothing, mistress. Just go lied down.” She went to sleep and was found dead the following morning. Elizabeth was buried in the church of Cachtice on November 25, 1614. According to sources of villagers uproar over having the Blood Countess buried in their cemetery, she was moved to her birth home at Ecsed, where it was interred at the Bathory family crypt. The location of her body today is unknown. Cachtice church or Cachtice Castle does not bear any markings of her grave.
Reputation
Several authors like Laszlo Nagy and Dr. Irma Szadeczky-Kardoss argue that Elizabeth Bathory was a victim of conspiracy. Nagy argues that proceedings against Bathory was largely politically motivated, possibly due to her extensive wealth and ownership of large areas of land in Hungary, escalating after the death of her husband. Theory has it that Hungarian history during that time includes religious and political conflicts, relating to wars with the Ottoman Empire, the spread of Protestantism and the extension of Habsburg power over Hungary.
Counter-arguments against this theory include the investigation into Bathory’s crimes were sparked by complaints from a Lutheran minister, Istvan Magyari. This does not contribute to the notion of a Catholic/Habsburg plot against the Protestant Bathory, although religious tension is still a possible source of conflict as Bathory was raised Calvinist, not Lutheran. To support Bathory’s innocence, testimony involved 300 witnesses and physical evidence collected by investigators have either addressed or disputed. That evidence included numerous bodes of dead and dying girls found when the castle was entered by Thurzo. Szadeczky-Kardoss argues the physical evidence was exaggerated and Thurzo misrepresented dead and wounded patients as victims of Bathory, as disgracing her would greatly benefit his political state ambitions.
Folklore and Popular Culture
Elizabeth Bathory’s case inspired many stories during the 18th and 19th centuries. The most common being that of a countess bathing in her victims’ blood to retain beauty or youth. This legend appeared in print for the first time in 1729, in the Jesuit scholar Laszlo Turoczi’s Tragica Historia, the first written account of the Bathory case. The story came into question in 1817, when witness accounts (which surfaced about 1765) were published for the first time. They included no references to blood baths. In his book, Hungary and Transylvania, published in 1850, John Paget describes supposed origins of Bathory’s blood-bathing, despite the account seems to be more a fictionalized account of oral history. It is difficult to know how accurate his account is. Sadistic pleasure seems to be a more plausible motive for Elizabeth Bathory’s crimes.
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