The possible causes were very well documented and the cruelty leaves me to wonder how many innocent people died at the hands of sadistic powerful rulers who enjoyed torture. The evidence gathered by Thurz also included 289 witness statements. He had also received the castle Bujak from King Albert of Habsburg. While she lived unharmed by any authority for years, many young girls went missing or ended up dead. There she died in 1614 at age 54. [citation needed]. Those horrific acts of violence and the sometimes-supernatural legends that surround the crimes help define Elizabeth Bathorys terrifying legacy today. The Somly branch, on the other hand, supported John Zpolya, whom the greater part of the Hungarian nobility had elected King. Instant DIGITAL DOWNLOAD . Ive never heard this story before but it reminded me of the move snow white and the huntsman. At the age of 11, Bathory, who was considered a beautiful and well-educated girl, became engaged to Count Ferenc Nadasdy. Answer (1 of 8): Jesus Christ of Nazareth is God, He is more than a prophet or a saint, He never married because He considered all women as His sisters and daughters and men as His sons and brothers, He is pure hearted and completely innocent unlike people today. Thurz collected evidence from some 300 witnesses who leveled a bevy of truly horrifying charges against the countess. The Csejte church and the castle of Csejte do not bear any markings of her possible grave. 1590 is when she was said to have started her crimes. One of those children (Pl) had two children. Elizabeth Bathory may have had a secret love child At the age of 11, Elizabeth's family betrothed her to 15-year-old Ferenc Nadasdy, the son of the then Palatine of Hungary. It is also interesting to note that the King of Hungary only took notice or sent someone to investigate the disappearances of young girls when it was young noble girls disappearing. Elizabeth was born August of 1560 to a powerful branch of the royal family in Hungary. Soon after her arrest, Bathory attended the trial against her. IMPORTANT PRIVACY NOTICE & DISCLAIMER: YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO USE CAUTION WHEN DISTRIBUTING PRIVATE INFORMATION. The family divided into two major branches, which descended from the sons and grandsons of Elizabeth Bthory (born Ecsedi Bthory Erzsbet in Hungarian) came from the noble Protestant family Bthory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Hungary. I also find intriguing that Bathory was not charged with something more serious. Her mother's father had been the Voivod (or Prince) of Transylvania, as had her father's brother - in fact, her parents came from two branches of the Bthory family. Considering the mythologized elements of Bathorys alleged crimes, it begs the question of how much of her bloody story was actually true and how much was made up just to take a powerful and wealthy woman down. Transylvanian Countess Elizabeth Bthory "The Blood Countess" (1560-1614) is often described as the first atypical and very rare, pathological hedonist lust female serial killer, as opposed to the more typical profit-motivated "black widows . [citation needed], Ferenc Ndasdy died on 4 January 1604 at the age of 48. [3], The younger branch of the family, the Bthory of Ecsed, were descended from Luke, the youngest son of Briccius. Updates? Anna was born roughly in the year 1585, and Katalin approximately 1594. The servants confessed under torture, which is not credible in contemporary proceedings. Her company expanded internationally and changed the face of women's cosmetics. Stammtafel nach Alexander von Simolin - printed in Farin, Voivode (and later Prince) of Transylvania, List of titled noble families in the Kingdom of Hungary, "Bram Stoker, Elizabeth Bathory and Dracula", "A genealogy of the founders of the Bthory family", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bthory_family&oldid=1105322508, Articles lacking reliable references from August 2012, Short description is different from Wikidata, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from February 2019, Pages using infobox family with unknown parameters, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. [9], In 1578, three years into their marriage, Ndasdy became the chief commander of Hungarian troops, leading them to war against the Ottomans. [4][32] Nagy argued that the proceedings against Bthory were largely politically motivated, possibly due to her extensive wealth and ownership of large areas of land in Hungary, which increased after the death of her husband. [37], Bthory has been labelled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, though the number of her victims is debated.[38]. [15] The child, said to have been fathered by a peasant boy, was supposedly given away to a local woman who was trusted by the Bthory family. The Torture. Elizabeth Bthory, a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer from the 16th and 17th centuries, is certainly at the top of the. American serial killer Israel Keyes is thought to have murdered at least 11 people before his 2012 arrest. The Bthory family belonged to the Gutkeled, a clan of Hungarian nobles, which traced its descent to the Swabian brothers Gut and Kelad, who immigrated into Hungary from the castle Stof (probably Staufen im Breisgau or Hohenstaufen in Wrttemberg) during the reign of King Peter (reigned 10381046), who himself was partly of Venetian descent. Why might Bathory have been subject to outside machinations? George and Anna were both Bathorys by birth; he a member of the Ecsed branch of the family and of the Somlyo. Matthias was not inclined to pay that debt, which historians say may have fueled his move to incriminate the countess in multiple crimes and deny her the opportunity to defend herself in court. Some say that Countess Elizabeth Bthory, considered by many to be the world's worst female serial killer, was the true inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. A legendary account, placing the Bthorys' origin in the year 900 (preceding the advent of the Gutkeled clan), relates how a god-fearing warrior called Vitus (a namesake of a member of the first generation of the Gutkeled clan) set out to fight a dragon, which lurked in the swamps next to the castle of Ecsed (actually built only in the 14th century) and harassed the countryside. Countess Elizabeth Bathory, or Erzsbet Bthory, was a wealthy and powerful Hungarian noblewoman whose relations included an uncle who was king of Poland and a nephew who was prince of. [citation needed], After the wedding, the couple lived in Nadasdy's castle at Srvr. Elizabeth Bathory portrait - Bloody Countess, medieval serial killer print, poster (DIGITAL DOWNLOAD) ArtisMortisGallery. In Hungarian the word btor means "brave". Many modern Hungarian scholars believe that the accusations against Elizabeth Bathory were exaggerated. Great job! Hambly. I really liked your article! Bthory was born into prominent Protestant nobility in Hungary. [31] The location of her body today is unknown but believed to be buried deep in the church area of the castle. She would bite shoulders and breasts, as well as burning the flesh, including the genitals, of some victims. After all, legend has it that she bathed in the blood of at least 650 servant girls she had tortured and killed. Two of the women and the male servant were sentenced to death, which was quickly carried out. [34] The story came into question in 1817 when the witness accounts (which had surfaced in 1765) were published for the first time. I will start with the claims where the evidence is clearest: No, Bthory did not keep a list of her victims/"patients". It took 35 years and 650 girls for the King of Hungary to take action. The second son, Stephen III rose to become Palatine of Hungary and in 1444 fell in the Battle of Varna as flag-bearer of Wadysaw, King of Poland and Hungary. [citation needed] Thurz, along with Paul and her two sons-in-law, originally planned for Bthory to be sent to a nunnery, but as accounts of her actions spread, they decided to keep her under strict house arrest.[22]. Such acts weren't illegal at the time Bathory was only punished because her victims were said to have included noblewomen but would still make Bathory responsible for many ruined lives. During colder parts of the year young women might be stripped naked and forced into deadly ice baths. Her uncle, Stephen Bathory, was king of Poland. My jaw dropped the moment I read that she had more than 600 victims. [8] Szdeczky-Kardoss argues that the physical evidence was exaggerated and Thurz misrepresented dead and wounded patients as victims of Bthory, as disgracing her would greatly benefit his political state ambitions. [9] Her older brother, Stephen Bthory (15551605), served as a Judge Royal of Hungary. [5][bettersourceneeded] Ladislaus' younger brother George II is the ancestor of the Simolin family, later called Bthory of Simolin (see below). According to Biographics, Bthory also had a steady supply of victims since she had almost 400 peasant women and girls working as servants across her estates. After the death of the count on the battlefield in January 1604, horrifying suspicions of torture, murder and vampirism were voiced against Elizabeth. Elizabeth I was a long-ruling queen of England, governing with relative stability and prosperity for 44 years. She was a bloodsucking demon sent from Hell to murder young women. Briccius: The elder branch of the family, the Bthory of Somly were descended from John, Count of Szatmr, the first-born son of Briccius, through his eldest son Ladislaus (died 1373). As her husband was a soldier who was often off fighting Ottoman Turks, the couple spent most of their marriage apart. Due to his youth and the belief that he was less culpable, Jnos jvry was executed by a much less painful method: beheading. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! After the trials concluded, Thurzo founded Bathory guilty, and she stayed in solitary confinement in her castle, Cachtice, for the rest of her life. [26], On 25 January 1611, Thurz wrote a letter to King Matthias describing that they had captured and confined Bthory to her castle. She did this by saying she would give them a higher salary.11 The testimonies included how she killed the girls by mutilating their bodies, starving them, freezing them, and torturing them. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Some accounts of her life include her giving birth to an illegitimate child, fathered by another man, before her marriage. Her brother was a judge royal of Hungary. [3] Some insist she inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897),[11] although Stoker's notes on the novel provided no direct evidence to support this hypothesis. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Bathory is reputed to have killed at least six hundred victims, earning her a Guinness World Record for most prolific female murderer. [15], Bthory was raised a Calvinist Protestant. discoveries. In 1575 she married Count Ferencz Ndasdy and moved to Castle Csejte (now in Cachtice, Slovakia), a wedding gift from Ndasdys family. That's because of digital content theft! Its really interesting to learn about women serial killers because they are less common than men. Nadasdy moved Bathory to his estate in Savar. As a wealthy noblewoman, Bathory evaded the law until 1610, according to the History Channel. Countess Elizabeth Bthory de Ecsed (Bthory Erzsbet in Hungarian, Albeta Btoriov in Slovak; 7 August 1560 - 21 August 1614) was a countess from the renowned Bthory family of Hungarian nobility. The servants, accused of aiding her in torture and murder, were put on trial in 1611; three were executed. The Bathory Nadasdy family agreed to cancel Matthias's debts- and Matthias decided that Elizabeth Bathory would disappear behind the walls of her castle. The best-case scenario is that Bathory abused her servants but came nowhere near the level of violence alleged at her trial. Imprisonment allowed family members to take control of the powerful widow's possessions (her sons-in-law knew beforehand that her arrest was coming). 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