Books and films were made about this woman. She became a symbol of horror and cruelty. But was the "bloody countess" really guilty of the crimes that were attributed to her?
Spooky fun
Elizabeth (Erzhebet) Bathory was born on August 7, 1560 in Nyirbator (Kingdom of Hungary). A beautiful noble lady, wife of Count Ferenc Nadashdi, mother of four children, was most worried about the problem of preserving youth. Despite the use of miraculous herbs and infusions, over the years her body grew old, her skin faded, and she wanted to remain young and beautiful forever.
Familiar sorceresses announced that Erzsebet would preserve her youth and beauty if she bathed in the blood of young girls. While her husband was away (he served at court and rarely appeared at home), she amused herself by ordering young maids to be brought to her and torturing and then killing them herself.
The bodies were hidden by several trusted women. The countess drove needles under her victims' nails, pinched, bit and scratched their skin, burned the body with candles and at the same time laughed devilishly.
When the servants in the Cheyte castle, one after another, began to "die of an unknown disease," and their corpses were buried secretly from their relatives, terrible rumors spread around the neighborhood. Finding a servant for the countess among the neighboring peasant women became more and more difficult - no one agreed to work in this terrible place. Then Erzhebet's assistants began to deceive girls from distant lands to Cheyt, where word of the terrible deeds of the "bloody countess" had not yet reached. Many of the girls disappeared without a trace.
Over time, the Countess "switched" to girls from noble families. She felt that their blood was nobler than the blood of ordinary maids and more suitable for her purposes.
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It is said that once at a feast, Erzsebet locked the doors and interrupted all her ladies-in-waiting - more than 60 people - and then undressed and bathed in a bath filled with their blood. But here she was careful and chose only poor girls, albeit of a noble family, took them to her house, promising to give them a dowry. The true reasons for their deaths were carefully disguised.
Retribution
Meanwhile, rumors that Countess Nadashdi was taking baths of human blood reached the king. He ordered to interrogate the manager of the castle Cheyte and its other inhabitants. Everything opened up. In the castle, they found a torture room, instruments of torture, vats of blood, bodies of the dead and dying victims.
The villainous countess was imprisoned in her castle. All her assistants were sentenced to be burned, before that they had their fingers cut off, as "with their help they committed crimes." Erzhebet was never executed - influential relatives stood up for her. In her dungeon she was completely alone, food and drink was passed to her through a hole in the wall - the windows and door in her room were walled up. The "Bloody Countess" died two and a half years after the trial, on August 21, 1614.
The Countess is not to blame?
This is the official version of the story of Erzsebet Bathory. But there is also an unofficial one. In particular, Hungarian researchers Laszlo Nagy and Irma Sadecki-Kardos argue that the "bloody countess" could in fact have been the victim of a conspiracy. The political situation in Hungary at that time was not easy: there was a war with the Ottoman Empire, Protestantism became widespread, and the Habsburgs' power over the country was expanding. Erzsebet Bathory was a Calvinist. And the Habsburg Catholics played into the hands of a "demonstrative flogging": exposing one of the adherents of Calvinism to a villain and a pervert made black PR to the entire movement.
Researchers point to clear procedural violations and inconsistencies committed during the trial over the alleged accomplices of Countess Bathory. It is clear that all of them were brutally tortured and then executed very quickly. As you know, you can confess to anything under torture.
True, there are also some counterarguments against the version whitewashing Erzsebet's personality. The fact is that the impetus for the investigation was a complaint filed by the Lutheran cleric Istvan Magyari. Although still Lutherans and Calvinists, these are different denominations. But what about the numerous dead bodies found in the castle that belonged to the victims of the Countess? Alas, after several centuries, we cannot reliably judge what was true and what was myth.
