Erzsebet Bathory, a Hungarian countess, is infamous for allegedly torturing and killing hundreds of women. She is known for the myth that she bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth. Bathory was born into a powerful family and married Ferencz Nadasdy, who gifted her Cachtice Castle. After his death, Bathory continued her sadistic activities, but was eventually caught and placed under house arrest until her death in 1614.
Erzsebet Bathory, sometimes called the Blood Countess, Blood Countess or Bloody Lady of Cachtice, was a Hungarian countess who lived from 1560 to 1614. She tortured and killed as many as 600 or 700 women by some counts, while some sources list far more low, between 35 and 60. He is a controversial figure, as his story has been the basis of many legends and fictionalized tales, and it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction in his story. However, she is one of the most notorious serial killers of all time and is almost as important as Vlad Tepes in vampire lore.
The most famous story about Erzsebet Bathory, though undocumented and widely discredited by scholars, is that she bathed in the blood of her virgin victims to preserve her youth. A highly improbable legend holds that one day he slapped a maid violently and observed that her skin looked younger and whiter where it had been splashed with the maid’s blood, thus conceiving the idea of regular bloodbaths which she needed of a growing supply of young females. Raymond T. McNally, her 20th-century biographer, argues that such legends were invented and circulated to explain why a woman indulged in brutality and sadism, considered strictly male vices in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many stories about Erzsebet Bathory also openly include sexual torture, probably based on the fact that all of her victims were women, but this speculation is not supported by historical evidence.
Erzsebet Bathory was born in Nyirbator, Hungary on August 7, 1560, the product of a long-standing and powerful family of Hungarian nobility. She was engaged to Ferencz Nadasdy and moved to Nadasdy Castle when she was 11, and the two were married in 1575. Cachtice Castle, an estate of the Nadasdy family, was presented to Bathory by her husband as a wedding present, and she owed spend the rest of his life there.
Nadasdy became the commander of the Hungarian troops against the Turks in 1578 and Bathory managed the castle while at the front. Bathory also helped defend Vienna during this war, known as the Long War, for the Habsburgs who currently control Hungary. Cachtice was sacked by Turkish forces in 1599, but Vienna remained safe. Nadasdy died in 1602 or 1604 and his death is attributed to various causes in different sources.
Bathory began her sadistic activities with her maids, but soon began looking for other means of ensuring a constant supply, as most of her victims did not live long and killed more women each week. Left to her own devices after her husband’s death and supported by a few faithful servants, she Bathory is said to have employed a number of sharecroppers and induced young women of the gentry to stay in her castle in search of victims. In 1610, the parish priest of Cachtice and the monks residing in Vienna complained to the Viennese courts about the cries coming from Bathory Castle. When her property was investigated, she was caught in the act of torture and several dead victims were found.
Bathory was not tried, probably for political reasons due to the influence of her relatives and possible repercussions for them, but she was placed under house arrest and her servants and others were questioned. In 1611, three of her servants were executed and Bathory was walled up in a single room in Cachtice Castle and fed through a hole in the door. She died three years later on August 21, 1614.
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