Corpses were supposed to have been hidden in a variety of places—sometimes getting dug up by nosy dogs—but the most common method of disposal was to have bodies secretly buried in churchyards at night. The Bathory dated their origins to around 900AD. Dozens of witnesses testified against Báthory. She was raised at the family castle in Ecséd until the age of 15 when she got married. Vitus killed the beast with just three thrusts of his lance. Was she a cold-blooded, tortured murderer? Elizabeth Báthory is famed as the ‘Blood Countess,’ an Eastern European aristocrat who tortured and murdered over six hundred girls. Born into prominent Protestant nobility in Hungary, her family controlled, Her uncle, Stephen Báthory (pictured), was the King of. Some of the more repeatable tortures include sticking pins into the girls, tearing at their flesh with heated tongs, … The couple married when she was 15 (and he was aged 19) at the palace of Vranov nad Topľou(Varannó in Hungarian) on 8 May 1575. Thurzó ordered two notaries to gather information, who collected the testimony of more than 300 witnesses between 1610 and 1611. Like us on Facebook to see similar stories, U.S. daily coronavirus cases exceed 129,000, third day over 100,000, Romaine lettuce recall 2020: Tanimura & Antle recalls single heads of romaine for possible E. coli contamination. According to the testimonies, Elizabeth Báthory's initial victims were servant girls aged between 10 and 14 years. She was a powerful and competent woman who ruled her estate efficiently, suggesting there were political reasons for taking her out of the picture. By the time of Elizabeth Bathory’s birth on August 7, 1560, the Bathory family could boast members who had served as Palatines (Prime Ministers) of Hungary.
It seemed almost impossible to find the latter when this article was first written, but now a good few years later there is a small current. It was a tension that remained throughout Elizabeth Bathory’s life. While rumors of her sadistic nature had been circulating for years, they were repeatedly dismissed, largely because the victims were peasant women. Four of Bathory’s servants were tortured, tried, and three were found guilty and executed in 1611. This motif represented the mythical dragon killed by Vitus. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory was the most murderous woman in history. In this week’s … According to legend, a warrior called Vitus was asked to tackle a dragon that was terrorizing the swamplands of Ecsed, in the Heves County of Hungary. The act of accusing a wealthy widow of murder, witchcraft, or sexual impropriety to seize her lands was far from unusual during this period. She stands out as a shocking lesson in just how dangerous a sadistic, demented powerful woman can be. The Countess is also said to have begun killing daughters of the lesser gentry, who were sent to her castle by their parents to learn etiquette. I Can't Believe This Social Security Bonus Was So Easy, Americans Are Obsessed With New Blanket That Puts You To Sleep In Minutes, 23 New Gadgets That Will Sell Out Before the Holidays.
The simple design also conveyed a powerful message: from small beginnings, the Bathory had achieved great things. In 1610, the Count Palatine of Hungary, Elizabeth’s cousin, began to investigate allegations of cruelty by Elizabeth. These were almost all of noble birth and had been sent to the court for learning and advancement. This allowed Bathory’s estates to be saved from confiscation by the King of Hungary, thus not tipping the balance of power too much, and allowed the heirs—who petitioned, not for her innocence, but for their lands—to keep the wealth. History has a way of turning powerful women into folklore. There was no official trial, even though the King of Hungary pushed for one, just the collection of several hundred statements. Though Thurzó determined that the Countess had tortured and killed more than 600, the official tally at trial was 80. Bram Stoker tipped his hat to Vlad Tepes in Dracula, and Elizabeth has also been adopted by modern horror culture as a figure of almost equal ghoulish importance. The passing of the centuries has left us with an incomplete picture of the true nature of her crimes. The victims were reportedly the daughters of local peasants who were lured to the Čachtice by offers of well-paid work as maids and servants in the castle. Báthory was engaged at age 10 to Ferenc Nádasdy, the son of Baron Tamás Nádasdy de Nádasd et Fogarasföld and Orsolya Kanizsay in what was probably a political arrangement within the circles of the aristocracy. Robert Wilde is a historian who writes about European history. Some of the more repeatable tortures include sticking pins into the girls, tearing at their flesh with heated tongs, dousing/submerging them in freezing water and beating them, often on the soles of their feet. All the while, she might not have done any of this at all. For her crimes, Bathory was sentenced to house arrest, while her three servant accomplices were put to death immediately after their trial. Examples of the more skeptical, historical view are now filtering into common culture.
The crimes she was accused of included severe beatings, burning, mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off of faces, arms and other body parts, freezing them, and starving them to death. Elizabeth Báthory (Hungarian: Báthory Erzsébet), was born on August 7, 1560, in Nyírbátor. His reward was Ecsed and its castle. The Countess is perhaps most famous in popular culture for allegedly drinking the blood of her victims. The legends also claim that she bathed in the blood of their young victims in an attempt to preserve her youth. Elizabeth Bathory came from an illustrious family whose lineage, wealth and power rivaled even that of the kings they served. From these small beginnings, the Bathory began to dominate the Kingdom of Hungary. The Bathory tended to switch their allegiance to whichever power suited them best: the Hapsburgs one minute, the Hungarian Crown the next.