Back in college, I had my midterms presentation about creating a speech for one of my classes..
Since I was so ecstatic to do my homework, I told my teacher that I wanted to present mine first. My speech was about Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I saw an action figure of hers while strolling in G2.
Countess Elizabeth BathoryAugust 7, 1560 - August 21,1614Born from a Hungarian noble family. Known for her infamy of killing a speculated of 650 young women (both from noble families and commoners). She thought that by drinking and bathing from their blood would preserve her youthful appearance.
Early years...Her father was George Báthory of the Ecsed branch of the family, a brother of Andrew Bonaventura Báthory, who had been Voivod of Transylvania, while her mother was Anna Báthory (1539–1570), daughter of Stephen Báthory, another Voivod of Transylvania, of the Somlyó branch. Through her mother, she was the niece of Stefan Báthory, King of Poland.
The young countess was a spoiled child, raised by a group of governesses, employed to give her everything she wanted. She was taught Latin, German and Greek. At age 5 or four, she had epilepsy, probably as a result of inbreeding. But, she was seen as an intelligent woman.
When Elizabeth was at young age, she witnessed an execution of a gypsy. The gypsy was placed into the stomach of a horse, and then they closed the horse's stomach. No sympathy was shown to the man's death, and there were no regret in the face of the man who had executed him. This showed the young Elisabeth that ordinary civilians could get killed without fear of punishment.
Marriage....At the age of 15, Báthory was engaged to Ferenc Nádasdy and moved to Nádasdy Castle in Sárvár, Kingdom of Hungary. In 1575, she married Nádasdy in Varannó. Nádasdy’s wedding gift to Báthory was his home, Čachtice Castle, situated in the Little Carpathians near Trencsén, together with the Čachtice country house and 17 adjacent villages. The castle itself was surrounded by a village and agricultural lands, bordered by outcrops of the Little Carpathians. In 1602, Nádasdy finally bought the castle from Rudolf II, so that it became a private property of the family.
A document from New Years Eve 1572 tells that Elizabeth and Ferenc married. The marriage was probably political arranged within the circles of the aristocracy. Elizabeth kept her name because her family was more powerful than her husband's. They married in a little palace named Varanno, on May 8th, 1575. There were ca. 4500 guest at the wedding. Elisabeth achieved the castle Cachtice as a wedding gift.
Elizabeth was sent to Sàrvàr where the Nadasdy family lived. Her husband was in Wien to study and Elisabeth spent much time on her own. She traveled to a house which her family owned. There she had a lover, Ladislas Bende. She got pregnant and had a son. He was sent to Transylvania and no one heard anything about him. Elizabeth paid everyone who knew about it to keep it secret. Once she ran away with one of her lovers, but she came back and her husband forgave her.
In 1578, Nádasdy became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. With her husband away at war,
Elizabeth Báthory managed business affairs and the estates. That role usually included providing for the Hungarian and Slovak peasants, even medical care.
During the height of the Long War (1593-1606), she was charged with the defense of her husband's estates, which lay on the route to Vienna.[2] The threat was significant, for the village of Čachtice had previously been plundered by the Ottomans while Sárvár, located near the border that divided Royal Hungary and Ottoman occupied Hungary, was in even greater danger.
She was an educated woman who could read and write in four languages.There were several instances where she intervened on behalf of destitute women, including a woman whose husband was captured by the Turks and a woman whose daughter was raped and impregnated. She was interested in science and astronomy.
Elizabeth's husband was a profesionnel soldier, and therefore, he traveled a lot. The first years of their marriage, they had no children and it was in these long period of times that Elizabeth's sadistic nature began. They were married in 25 years. Her husband died in 1604 at the age of 47. His death is commonly reported as resulting from an injury sustained in battle.
In 1585, Elizabeth had a daugher, Anna. Then she had another daugher and a son, Ursula and Andrew, but both of them died at early age. After this, she had another daugher and a son, Kate and Paul, born in 1598. All of them were taken care of by governesses at the same they were born. Even if the countess ignored her children, she never tortured them.
When she noticed that her appearance was taking it's toll due to her age. One day, a servant girl was brushing her mane when she accidentally pulled it hard. Countess Elizabeth was furious that she slapped the girl's face so hard a nit of blood smeared on her hand. When she wiped it off, she noticed that her skin was rejuvenated.
She called her accomplices, Dorka, Ilonna, and Ficko to have the girl killed and save the blood in a tub were she bathed..
Arrest and Trial...
Years passed and the secrecy can no longer be kept. Thurzo, another Magyar nobility was asked by King Matthias to check if the claims were true. He and his men went to castle Cachtice to verify if the claims were true. He and his men entered and met a grisly surprise. There was a dead girl lying while the other was clinging to dear life. Some were wounded locked up. Stench of rotting corpses was the scent of the castle (too many girls were killed already and they were running out of options to were they can dump the bodies). Thurzo can not stand the scene and went to look for Elizabeth.
Dorka, Ilona and Ficko were found guilty and put to death on the spot. Dorka and Ilona had their fingernails ripped out before they were thrown into a fire, while Ficko, who was deemed less guilty, was beheaded before being consigned to the flames. A public scaffold was erected near the castle to show the public that justice had been done. Katarína Benická was sentenced to
life imprisonment, as she only acted under the domination and
bullying by the other women, as implied by recorded testimony.
They saw her, getting ready for her blood bath while her accomplices slitted the throat of the young girl.
However the death penalty did not push through due to the fact that she is from nobility and king Matthias owes her some money.
During the trial of her primary servants, Báthory had been placed under house arrest in a walled up set of rooms. She remained there for four years, until her death.
King Matthias had urged Thurzo to bring her to court and two notaries were sent to collect further evidence,but in the end no court proceedings against her were ever commenced.
On 21 August 1614, Elizabeth Báthory was found dead in her castle. Since there were several plates of food untouched, her actual date of death is unknown. She was buried in the church of Čachtice, but due to the villagers' uproar over having "The Tigress of Čachtice" buried in their cemetery, her body was moved to her birthhome at Nagyecsed in
Kingdom of Hungary, where it is interred at the Báthory family crypt.
In 1610 and 1611 the notaries collected testimonies from more than 300 witness accounts. Trial records include testimonies of the four defendants, as well as 13 more witnesses. Priests, noblemen and commoners were questioned. Witnesses included the castellan and other personnel of Sárvár castle.
According to these testimonies, her initial victims were local peasant girls, many of whom were lured to Čachtice by offers of well-paid work as maidservants in the castle. Later she is said to have begun to kill daughters of lower gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well. At the trial there were accusations of pagan practices and witchcraft.
The descriptions of torture that emerged during the trials were often based on hearsay. The atrocities described most consistently included:
* severe beatings over extended periods of time, often leading to death.
* burning or mutilation of hands, sometimes also of faces and genitalia.
* biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other bodily parts.
* freezing to death.
* surgery on victims, often fatal.
* starving of victims.
* sexual abuse.
The use of needles was also mentioned by the collaborators in court.
Some witnesses named relatives who died while at the gynaeceum. Others reported having seen traces of torture on dead bodies, some of which were buried in graveyards, and others in unmarked locations. According to testimonies by the defendants, Elizabeth Báthory tortured and killed her victims not only at Čachtice but also on her properties in Sárvár, Sopronkeresztúr, Bratislava, (then Pozsony, Pressburg), and Vienna, and even between these locations. In addition to the defendants, several people were named for supplying Elizabeth Báthory with young women. The girls had been procured either by deception or by force. A little-known figure named Anna Darvulia was also suspected to have influenced Báthory, having made it her business to know everything about the girls Báthory employed, as well as insisting that she only took girls 'who have not yet tasted the pleasures of love'. Darvulia died long before the trial.
Vanity, at this level is quite disturbing. She's mysterious and cloaked with infamy that I became curious...
xoxo
