Elizabeth Bathory – The Story of The Blood Countess

            It is interesting to note how Báthory’s victims had evolved, becoming more and more ambitious each time. Until her husband’s death, Elizabeth’s only victims were disobedient servants, which at the time was considered merely impolite. Upon meeting Darvulia, she started hunting young peasant girls instead, lured to her castle by the promise of jobs or money, or simply kidnapped (Ramsland, 7). After Darvulia’s death, Elizabeth is said to have turned to a farmer’s widow, Erzsi Majorova, for counsel. It is suspected that it was under Majorova’s influence that Elizabeth started taking young noble girls as victims (Amaral). She started this by offering to teach etiquette to young noblewomen at her estate. When in 1610 one of the girls was the victim of murder, which  Báthory staged as suicide, the authorities finally decided to act (Ramsland, 5). An investigative team, lead by her own cousin Count Gyorgy Thurzo, searched her house on request from the Holy Roman Emperor Mattias I, finding bodies of dead or dying tortured girls scattered around the place (Ramsland, 1-2).

            This delay in action against Báthory’s crimes, which could not possibly have remained a secret considering the number of peasant families she had robbed of daughters, was caused by the status of the nobility during the time period. A generation before Elizabeth’s birth, in 1524, a Hungarian peasant uprising was crushed, with the leader being “roasted alive on an iron throne and his followers forced to eat his flesh before they themselves were broken on the wheel and hanged,” (McNally qtd. in Noe). These events caused the nobility to be feared by the peasants, who were thus unable to press charges against Báthory. Another more simplistic reason is that the Báthorys were a very powerful family, and other nobles did not want to risk antagonizing her.

            Báthory’s trial happened on the 2nd of January, 1611, in front of a panel of 21 judges (Ramsland, 6). Elizabeth herself however, was not allowed to participate. Almost all of Báthory’s servants testified against her, before being burned at the stake. Ficzko, who was supposedly taken under Báthory’s custody by force, was given a lighter punishment, and was beheaded before being tossed into the flames. Only one of Elizabeth’s servants refused to testify against her, and had her eyes and breasts removed before being burned at the stake with the others (Ramsland, 7). As the laws of the region at the time did not allow a noble to be condemned, Elizabeth Báthory was sentenced to life imprisonment in a room at her castle.

            For four years Báthory was confined to one room, with meals being served to her through a small opening in the wall. In the August of 1614 however, someone looking through the said opening saw Báthory lying face down, with several plates of untouched food near her. The exact date of her death is thus unknown (Ramsland, 8).

            In conclusion, we can see that though the Renaissance is known for its great works of artistry and its scientific developments, there are darker sides of it as well. A great deal of this may have been a result of inbreeding, causing members of aristocratic families to be mentally unstable, but a lot of it could have been caused simply by moral ideologies of the time. Often with century-old tales, the original story is lost through the addition of details with each generation. However, though this has happened to the story of Elizabeth Báthory a well, her identity as one of the bloodiest women in history is indisputable. As such, Báthory will be remembered for centuries ahead, a feat accomplished by few.