Hungary’s Blood Countess
Countess Erzsébet Báthory de Ecsed. Her name may sound familiar from Death’s Visage, one of my first stories featuring Máté Nádasdy, which explores the mystery surrounding the theft of a supposed death mask from the notorious “Blood Countess.” While it may seem morose today, making an imprint of a departed person’s face was customary at different times. Many famous examples exist of this practice, although there is no evidence such a mask was ever cast from Erzsébet Báthory’s corpse. While the mask of Death’s Visage is fictional, Erzsébet Báthory is not—and her real story is one you need to hear.
Early life and marriage
Erzsébet’s father was a baron and she grew up in a castle, so today we would say she experienced a privileged upbringing. On her mother’s side, she was niece to the Prince of Transylvania who later became King of Poland.
Born in 1560. She spent her childhood in the village of Esced in eastern Hungary. Erzsébet received a noble’s education, and besides her native Hungarian, she learned German, Latin, and Greek.
Epilepsy. While seizure disorders would not be understood for another three hundred years, multiple accounts exist of her childhood seizures, and experts today posit she may have suffered from epilepsy. This alone would be enough to cast an evil pall on the girl as seizures were often associated with demon possession.
An illegitimate son—maybe. When she was thirteen, she was rumored to have fathered a child out of wedlock with a peasant boy, and the baby was spirited off to a local woman to raise. There is no evidence proving the existence of the pregnancy or the child, and these rumors didn’t originate until after Erzsébet’s death.
Wedding present from a nobleman. At fifteen, she wed Count Ferenc II Nádasdy to consolidate wealth and lands in both Transylvania and Hungary. His wedding gift to her was Čachtice Castle in western Hungary, now Slovakia.
Though the couple would not live there immediately, the gift symbolized the significant power and wealth they held—power that Erzsébet would manage herself during Ferenc’s long absences at war. Later in her life she would return to Čachtice Castle, where she would be imprisoned and die.
Husband’s success. Ferenc gained fame as chief commander of the Hungarian army during the Ottoman-Habsburg wars. During his extended time away, Erzsébet administered their home affairs, which included several estates and vast landholdings. Ferenc was nicknamed “the Strong Black Bey” by the Ottomans, because of his ferocity in battle and the black armor he wore.
Children. In Erzsébet’s will dated 1610, she identified five children as heirs. All were born between 1585 and 1598. The oldest, Anna, would become the wife of Nikola VI Zrinski, a Croatian count, and the next, Orsolya, would marry István II Benyó.
Nádasdy’s death. Ferenc died in 1604 at forty-eight after an illness or war injury, leaving Erzsébet widowed after nearly three decades of marriage. With his death, Erzsébet’s position at the head of her estates became even more exposed, and soon after, the whispers of atrocity began.
Rumors of atrocities
At a distance of over four hundred years, discerning fact from myth is difficult. Following Ferenc’s death, allegations of horrific crimes began to swirl around Erzsébet Báthory. Because she would have been left with immense wealth and power upon her husband’s death, many believe political enemies contrived accusations against her to usurp her money and estates.
The charges. Multiple inquiries took place between 1610 and 1612, by which investigators secured large quantities of evidence, including over 300 witness statements. Through much of her married life, Erzsébet hosted a gynaeceum, where young girls were left in her charge to learn etiquette and manners of the court, and it was these girls she was accused of torturing and murdering. Reports circulated regarding hundreds of deaths under her care, with bodies discovered in the region’s cemeteries and other unmarked graves around her landholdings. Rumors were spread that she maintained torture chambers at each of her castles, and that she took girls with her on her travels from estate to estate to torture and kill. Local officials used these rumors to create a public hysteria that would destroy any hope of an impartial judicial process. This frenzy culminated in the January 1611 trials of her closest servants.
Trials. Four of her servants were tried that winter, accused of assisting in the alleged crimes. Most witnesses testifying did not observe any of the atrocities, rather, they had heard the accusations from others (i.e., hearsay, generally inadmissible in today’s courts). The servants confessed to assisting with the crimes only under the pain of torture, and they were later executed for their complicity. One witness claimed to have seen a tally of victims in Erzsébet’s own notebook, listing 650 girls murdered. Despite these accusations and the mounting pressure from political rivals, criminal authorities never tried Erzsébet herself for the alleged crimes.
Arrest. Instead, on January 25, 1611, Erzsébet was placed under house arrest, confining her to her castle in Čachtice. The arresting officer claimed to have seen a girl’s corpse and another woman being tortured, but he could produce no evidence after the fact. It’s now attributed to the many myths that have grown over the centuries. If you’re interested in learning more about the trials and what they proved or didn’t prove, I refer you to Dr. Irma Szádeczky-Kardoss’s excellent article, The Bloody Countess? An Examination of the Life and Trial of Erzsébet Báthory.
Final years
House arrest. Erzsébet lived her remaining years in Čachtice Castle under house arrest, where she could move unhindered about her apartments. Another account told she spent her last days locked in a brick room, though this is unlikely given her wealth, status and the absence of a formal conviction.
Death. The morning of August 21, 1614, Erzsébet’s servants discovered her dead in her bed. She showed no signs of illness. The previous night, she complained to a servant her hands were cold, but it is not clear if this was related to her death. She was first buried in the local church graveyard, but later her body was moved to the village where she spent her childhood, Esced. The location of her grave today is unknown. She was fifty-four when she died, and with her death, the rumors and accusations surrounding her life were left unresolved, fueling what would become one of history’s most infamous legends.
The myth—the truth
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, folklore grew surrounding the Countess Erzsébet Báthory, In time, she became known as the “Blood Countess,” based on the legends spread throughout Hungary and then Europe.
Medical Treatments. During the sixteenth century, it became customary for a noble family to offer medical treatment to those living on their estate lands. Dr. Szádeczky-Kardoss, who passed away in 2018, held the opinion many of the remedies of the era may have been perceived as torture but were genuine healing practices yet unknown in the region. Some of the common procedures included bloodletting, cauterizing wounds, treating infected tissue by excision or with maggots, use of tourniquets. These could have been seen as sadistic acts to the people of the day.
Bloodbaths. One of the most popular legends said she murdered young virgin women to bathe in their blood. She believed this would preserve her youthful appearance. No record of this appeared in any historical documents from Erzsébet’s era, not even in the 300 witness statements. Some modern historians theorize Erzsébet was wrongly cast as a vain countess trying to maintain her youth and the bloodbath myth developed from there. In the eighteenth century, most people held the belief women lacked the capacity for sadistic crimes. If she had murdered all those girls, the motive must be some narcissistic pursuit, like eternal youth.
Retellings. The bloodbath myth developed in the eighteenth century independent of the vampire scare, which embroiled Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. The scare culminated in 1897 when Bram Stoker published Dracula, but there is no evidence Erzsébet’s legend inspired Stoker. Connecting the blood bathing myth and the vampire legend didn’t occur until the 1970s. For a comprehensive accounting of Erzsébet’s impact through the centuries, Wikipedia maintains an excellent list of works from literature, poetry, comics, plays, television, film, radio, video games, toys and music. The list highlights Erzsébet’s extensive impact on modern culture. This lasting influence shows how her story—true or not—continues to captivate imaginations, illustrating the fine line between myth and reality.
Final reflection
Without concrete evidence to the contrary, it is hard to imagine a powerful aristocrat behaving in such a heinous manner. It is more plausible political forces drove the investigations, forces that would benefit from seizing her vast wealth and landholdings. That said, something unusual likely happened at the secluded Čachtice Castle, and once a thread of it was discovered, malevolent parties wove it into a garment that would whip up public hysteria and move even the most jaded bureaucrats to action. So, like today, it is often difficult to discern the truth, for facts can and will be fabricated to serve selfish motives. What is even more astounding is the impact the mistruths have had on centuries of culture and legend. Erzsébet’s is a cautionary tale of hyperbole gone very wrong.
Note: Coincidentally, Máté and Count Ferenc II share the same last name: Nádasdy. When I first selected Máté’s surname, I hadn’t yet connected him to the mask of Erzsébet Báthory. It wasn’t until later I realized the link and embraced this twist of fate.
Now, read the story…
