WEBVTT - The Blood Countess Elizabeth Báthory

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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<v Speaker 1>and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.

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<v Speaker 1>In the more than two years since I've been putting

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<v Speaker 1>Noble Blood out into the world, by far, the most

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<v Speaker 1>frequently requested subject for me to cover is the Hungarian

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<v Speaker 1>countess Elizabeth Bathory. Chances are if you're a fan of

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<v Speaker 1>historical trivia or true crime corners of the Internet, you

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<v Speaker 1>at least have a passing familiarity with Bathory. She's often positioned,

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<v Speaker 1>including by the Guinness Book of World Records, as the

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<v Speaker 1>most prolific female serial killer of all time. In the

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<v Speaker 1>centuries since Elizabeth Bathory's life, her story has traveled as

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<v Speaker 1>folklore and word of mouth, horror story, as pop history,

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<v Speaker 1>and now spooky Internet irreverence. The basic version of the

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<v Speaker 1>narrative is that Elizabeth Bathory was a wealthy and powerful

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<v Speaker 1>countess in sixteenth and seventeenth century Hungary, and that her

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<v Speaker 1>estates became nightmare dens of sadistic torture that she inflicted

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<v Speaker 1>first on her servant girls and then eventually as time

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<v Speaker 1>went on and the daughters of noblemen too young girls

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<v Speaker 1>who had been sent to her palaces to learn basic

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<v Speaker 1>courtly etiquette. Stories of Elizabeth Bathory often include gruesome details

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<v Speaker 1>of her torture. That she would take a girl and

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<v Speaker 1>strip her naked before covering her with honey and sending

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<v Speaker 1>her out into the fields to be devoured by insects.

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<v Speaker 1>Bathory would stick needles beneath fingernails, cut off flesh, whip

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<v Speaker 1>servants with stinging nettles, or forced girls naked into freezing

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<v Speaker 1>ice baths. There was seemingly no end to Elizabeth Bathori's depravity,

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<v Speaker 1>nor to her creative means of indulging her sadism. Most

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<v Speaker 1>popular culture depictions of Elizabeth Bathory also include one very

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<v Speaker 1>specific element that the countess not only murdered young girls,

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<v Speaker 1>but that she bathed in their blood, believing that it

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<v Speaker 1>would keep her forever young and beautiful. It's the perfect detail,

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<v Speaker 1>incredibly visual and cinematic. Can't you picture it now, the

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<v Speaker 1>aging Countess, vain and ever fearful, lowering herself into a

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<v Speaker 1>golden tub filled with crimson. It gives her motivation for

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<v Speaker 1>the murders beyond insanity or mere sadism. It makes the

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<v Speaker 1>story unforgettable. If you know the name Elizabeth Bathory, at all.

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<v Speaker 1>It's because, you know, Elizabeth Bathory, the bloody serial killer,

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<v Speaker 1>the blood countess. But what if we been wrong about

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<v Speaker 1>her this entire time? What if Elizabeth Bathory was completely innocent.

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<v Speaker 1>In recent years, a few scholars have attempted to reframe

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<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth Bathory not as a murderous but as a victim

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<v Speaker 1>of circumstances, manipulated by the Hungarian crown and the encroaching

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<v Speaker 1>Habsburg power, punished for being a wealthy and powerful woman

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<v Speaker 1>in the wrong family, conveniently disposed of on trumped up charges.

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<v Speaker 1>Those scholars suggest that, as so often happens, hundreds of

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<v Speaker 1>years of rumors and exaggeration have taken root, and when

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<v Speaker 1>a story is better than the truth, well that story

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<v Speaker 1>is almost impossible to kill. Now, personally, I'm not certain

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<v Speaker 1>I'm fully convinced one way or the other. I think

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<v Speaker 1>the problem with certain pieces of evidence is that they

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<v Speaker 1>can be explained reasonably in either direction. But to put

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<v Speaker 1>the case into modern legal parlance, there's certainly reasonable doubt,

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<v Speaker 1>and I think it's worth trying to understand why maybe

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<v Speaker 1>a famous historical monster might have just been a woman

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<v Speaker 1>all along. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood.

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<v Speaker 1>In the sixteenth century, when Elizabeth Bathory was born, Transylvania

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<v Speaker 1>was a principality within the Kingdom of Hungary. The Holy

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<v Speaker 1>Roman Empire was a looming neighbor ruled by the powerful

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<v Speaker 1>Habsburg family. At certain periods in history, Hungary and the

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<v Speaker 1>Holy Roman Empire would have the same monarch. That's what

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<v Speaker 1>the Habsburgs certainly wanted to consolidate their power, for their

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<v Speaker 1>leader not only to be emperor but also king of Hungary,

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<v Speaker 1>and why not Lithuania and Poland as well. Transylvan Out

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<v Speaker 1>was a pebble in their shoe, a stronghold for Eastern

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<v Speaker 1>independence from Western Habsburg influence of these little principalities, and

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<v Speaker 1>the Bathories were one of the most influential families across

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<v Speaker 1>those principalities. Elizabeth born August seventh, fifteen sixty was a

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<v Speaker 1>product of an illustrious lineage. Her paternal uncle was the Voivode,

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<v Speaker 1>or highest ranking official of Transylvania. Her father was a baron.

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<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth's mother was also a Bathory, and on that side,

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<v Speaker 1>her grandfather was a previous by vote of Transylvania, and

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<v Speaker 1>her uncle, Stephen Bathory, was the King of Poland and

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<v Speaker 1>Grand Duke of Lithuania. Some here that Elizabeth's parents were

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<v Speaker 1>both Bathories, and we've that into their Halloween story about her,

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<v Speaker 1>that being in bred was the source of her mental illness,

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<v Speaker 1>her sadism. There were reports of her having epilepsy in

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<v Speaker 1>her childhood. Surely that too, some believe is the result

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<v Speaker 1>of her parents blood being too close. Fortunately for Elizabeth,

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<v Speaker 1>her parents were from two extremely distant branches of the family,

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<v Speaker 1>though the name had been preserved. Her mother and father

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<v Speaker 1>were separated from their last common ancestor by seven generations

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<v Speaker 1>and two hundred years. But Elizabeth was sickly as a

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<v Speaker 1>young child, prone to seizures that were diagnosed in the

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<v Speaker 1>sixteenth century as falling sickness. Some say that one of

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<v Speaker 1>the treatments involved opening a cut and letting the blood

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<v Speaker 1>of a healthy person enter the body, and so that too,

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<v Speaker 1>is used as a morbid little detail to foreshadow Elizabeth's

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<v Speaker 1>alleged blood lust. The rumors about Elizabeth Bathory's life are countless,

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<v Speaker 1>and I've found that most sources on the Internet either

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<v Speaker 1>willfully forego actual evidence or just except that Elizabeth today

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<v Speaker 1>lives more as folklore than an actual historical figure. One

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<v Speaker 1>of the rumors is that when Elizabeth was thirteen, she

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<v Speaker 1>had an affair with a peasant boy and gave birth

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<v Speaker 1>to a child. There's no evidence of that. What we

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<v Speaker 1>do know is that when she was ten years old,

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<v Speaker 1>she was engaged to Count Ference Nadashti, who was five

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<v Speaker 1>years older than her and from one of the most

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<v Speaker 1>powerful noble families over in the Kingdom of Hungary. The

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<v Speaker 1>pair were married when Elizabeth was fifteen and Ference was twenty,

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<v Speaker 1>at an event with four thousand and five hundred guests

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<v Speaker 1>in attendance. We don't know if the pair were in love,

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<v Speaker 1>but they seemed to at least like each other well

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<v Speaker 1>enough to have five known children, three of whom survived

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<v Speaker 1>to adulthood. But the purpose of their marriage, like most

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<v Speaker 1>early modern marriages, wasn't happiness. This marriage codified an incredibly

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<v Speaker 1>lucrative allotans, one that would make the couple two of

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<v Speaker 1>the most powerful figures in Eastern Europe at the time,

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<v Speaker 1>with enough the states scattered across Hungary that an army

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<v Speaker 1>could traverse the country by using their properties as protective

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<v Speaker 1>lily pads. If it's difficult for you to visualize the

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<v Speaker 1>very complicated geopolitics at the time. Think of Transylvania and

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<v Speaker 1>Hungary as a square rectangle situation. All squares are rectangles,

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<v Speaker 1>but not all rectangles are squares. Transylvania was a part

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<v Speaker 1>of Hungary, but there were parts of the Kingdom of

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<v Speaker 1>Hungary that existed outside of Transylvania. At the start of

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<v Speaker 1>the sixteen hundreds, when Elizabeth was reaching middle age, Habsburg

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<v Speaker 1>Emperor Rudolph the Second inherited and claimed both the titles

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<v Speaker 1>of Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary. There was

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<v Speaker 1>so much resentment and an anti Hapsburg independence movie in

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<v Speaker 1>Transylvania that eventually forced Rudolph to abdicate Hungarian throne and

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<v Speaker 1>give it to his brother Matthias. It was still in

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<v Speaker 1>the family, but hopefully people would get less mad if

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<v Speaker 1>it was more of a nominally separate kingdom. In sixteen

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<v Speaker 1>o four, after twenty nine years of marriage, Count Ference

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<v Speaker 1>died while off fighting the Ottoman invasion of Hungary, and

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<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth Bathory became one of the wealthiest and most powerful

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<v Speaker 1>women in the kingdom. She was sitting on incredibly important

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<v Speaker 1>land that she inherited from her husband's powerful Hungarian family.

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<v Speaker 1>States that she was already more than comfortable managing. She

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<v Speaker 1>had managed them for decades while her husband was off fighting.

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<v Speaker 1>The properties were vast, and she was so wealthy that

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<v Speaker 1>even King Matthias the Second was in debt to her. Meanwhile,

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<v Speaker 1>over in Transylvania, her nephew, Gabor Bathory was being crowned prince.

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<v Speaker 1>With Elizabeth's wealth and rank, Gabor seemed like an even

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<v Speaker 1>bigger threat to the Habsburgs of Hungary. Her estates were huge,

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<v Speaker 1>stretching from the west to the southeast of the Hungarian Kingdom.

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<v Speaker 1>If the Bathories wanted, Elizabeth could grant Gobor safe passage

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<v Speaker 1>across the entire kingdom, giving him access to possibly claiming

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<v Speaker 1>the Polish throne or even the Hungarian throne. The Bathories

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<v Speaker 1>were a threat. This is the larger context in which

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<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth Bathory was accused of terrible things. On December, the

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<v Speaker 1>Palatine of Hungary, Gregory Thorzo, stormed into Elizabeth Bathories castle

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<v Speaker 1>with a regiment of guards. The Palatine is the highest

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<v Speaker 1>ranking official of the country, think of him almost like

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<v Speaker 1>a prime minister, and had been ordered by King Matthias

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<v Speaker 1>to investigate the terrible rumors about the widow Elizabeth Bathory.

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<v Speaker 1>Thorso had succeeded in his task and then some, eventually

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<v Speaker 1>gathering hundreds of testimonies, all of which were in agreement

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<v Speaker 1>that Elizabeth Bathory was a murderer. Thorso would right that

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<v Speaker 1>he burst into the castle and found Elizabeth Bathory in

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<v Speaker 1>the act of torture, with one young girl already dead

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<v Speaker 1>at her feet and another strung up and being flayed.

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<v Speaker 1>But in truth, according to the documentation of the secretary

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<v Speaker 1>at the time, Bathory was actually just eating dinner. It's

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<v Speaker 1>hard to find where the stories of Elizabeth Bathory murderer began.

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<v Speaker 1>One visiting priest had written to the king back when

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<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth's husband was still alive, saying that he saw the

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<v Speaker 1>two of them being noticeably cruel to their servants. The

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<v Speaker 1>local Lutheran pastor, Janis Picenus seemed to delight in accusing

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<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth of witchcraft and cannibalism. He even wrote to Thurso

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<v Speaker 1>saying that Elizabeth would transform into a black ut and

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<v Speaker 1>that she would stalk him at night. His clearly exaggerated

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<v Speaker 1>outrage doesn't seem particularly easy to explain, at least from

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<v Speaker 1>a religious perspective. Though Elizabeth's husband was Lutheran, Elizabeth herself

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<v Speaker 1>remained a lifelong Calvinist, just like her mother had been.

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<v Speaker 1>But even still, she didn't renounce Lutheranism or hinder the

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<v Speaker 1>religious freedom of the Lutherans on her land. Her records

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<v Speaker 1>as a landowner indicate that she built schools and educated ministers,

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<v Speaker 1>and supported Lutheranism to the healthy extent that the local

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<v Speaker 1>pastor should have been content with. Still, it's worth noting

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<v Speaker 1>that before Thorso's investigation into Bathory, there were no formal

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<v Speaker 1>legal complaints made against her at any time from either

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<v Speaker 1>anyone on her estate or in her community, and this

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<v Speaker 1>was during a period when the Hungarian legal system kept

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<v Speaker 1>meticulous records of all grapes and grievances. It was just

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<v Speaker 1>rumors that swirled around her that motivated Thorso to move

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<v Speaker 1>on Bathory. King Matthias authorized Thorzo to investigate the rumors

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<v Speaker 1>around Bathory at the start of six and the Palatine

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<v Speaker 1>sent two notaries out into the Hungarian territories to gather

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<v Speaker 1>whatever evidence they could. By October there were fifty two witnesses. Later,

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<v Speaker 1>after Bathori's arrest, there would be over three hundred. The

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<v Speaker 1>stories were damning Elizabeth Bathory, they said, like to torture

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<v Speaker 1>young girls, that she mutilated even bit them, that she

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<v Speaker 1>beat and stabbed and starved them. Almost all of the testimony,

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<v Speaker 1>it's worth pointing out, was word of mouth hearsay from

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<v Speaker 1>people who had heard of Bathoris abuse, or from people

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<v Speaker 1>who had had relatives who had entered service at the

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<v Speaker 1>castle but who had never emerged. Elizabeth was arrested that

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<v Speaker 1>night December in her castle, along with four of her servants,

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<v Speaker 1>her so called accomplices. Thorso tortured all of the servants

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<v Speaker 1>into confessing to assisting the countess with various murders, although

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<v Speaker 1>all four gave differing numbers of victims, ranging from twenty

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<v Speaker 1>to sixty. One of the later witnesses would allege that

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<v Speaker 1>an officer had told him that he had seen a ledger,

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<v Speaker 1>the Countess's own ledger of her murders, and that they

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<v Speaker 1>numbered in these six hundreds. Under torture, one of the

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<v Speaker 1>countess's servants gave Thorso the location of a young girl's

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<v Speaker 1>body buried on the estate. Before the torture, the servant

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<v Speaker 1>had maintained that the young girl was one of eight

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<v Speaker 1>who had died of the plague earlier that fall. Bristling

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<v Speaker 1>with excitement, Thurso and his men dug up the body,

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<v Speaker 1>still fairly well preserved, having been buried in the cold

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<v Speaker 1>dirt of autumn. There's a hoisted the decomposing, play gritten

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<v Speaker 1>corpse onto a wooden platform in front of the castle,

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<v Speaker 1>and he invited all the servants and noblemen of neighboring

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<v Speaker 1>estates to come and see, Come, be witness see the

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<v Speaker 1>naked tortured body of one of the Countess's victims. Elizabeth

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<v Speaker 1>herself was forced to stand there in full view a

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<v Speaker 1>punishment of public humiliation. Thorso shouted at her to look

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<v Speaker 1>at her poor victim. Though the body was more than

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<v Speaker 1>two months old, Thorso claimed that it was fresh, which

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<v Speaker 1>no doubt colored the opinions of onlookers when it came

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<v Speaker 1>to make their statements about Elizabeth's brutal torture. After all,

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<v Speaker 1>they had seen the Countess standing next to a clearly

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<v Speaker 1>mutilated body. Though King Matthias urged Thurzo to follow the

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<v Speaker 1>strictest legal procedures, Thurso ignored the wreck. He claimed to

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<v Speaker 1>spare the Bathory family the shame of a public trial

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<v Speaker 1>and to preempt the order of execution. The servants that

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<v Speaker 1>had been arrested, were tried and quickly put to death.

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<v Speaker 1>But though Elizabeth had private hearings, she never had the

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<v Speaker 1>large public trial that would have been standard at the time.

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<v Speaker 1>She wasn't permitted to make a defense or speak on

0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:25.640
<v Speaker 1>her own behalf. There was never a sentencing. Thurzo continued

0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.200
<v Speaker 1>to claim that it was a mercy that if she

0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:32.160
<v Speaker 1>went to trial she would be put to death instead.

0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.120
<v Speaker 1>Without a verdict, she was merely detained under house arrest

0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.560
<v Speaker 1>at the castle for the rest of her life. The

0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:44.120
<v Speaker 1>rumors would only continue and grow. The thorso wrote to

0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.480
<v Speaker 1>the king and said that she was bricked into a

0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.440
<v Speaker 1>locked room. Visiting priests at the castle would write and

0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:54.440
<v Speaker 1>remark that she actually moved freely about the castle, at

0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.840
<v Speaker 1>least until she died three years later at age fifty four.

0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:07.280
<v Speaker 1>The story could be complete there. Elizabeth Bathori as a murderess,

0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.560
<v Speaker 1>for whom the extent of her crimes will never be

0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.720
<v Speaker 1>fully known. A woman who was cruel and sadistic, who

0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.399
<v Speaker 1>killed as many servants as she could because she could

0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.840
<v Speaker 1>protected by her wealthy and powerful family. Only in the end,

0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.280
<v Speaker 1>when she was no longer fully protected, her wealth and

0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:30.359
<v Speaker 1>privilege at least allowed her to remain comfortable under house arrest,

0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:35.080
<v Speaker 1>guilty and disgraced, but not hanged by the neck. But

0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:39.720
<v Speaker 1>in recent years, Hungarian scholars in particular, have found that

0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.080
<v Speaker 1>Bathori's case is less cut and dry than some people

0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.320
<v Speaker 1>might believe. I don't know if there's a smoking gun

0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.320
<v Speaker 1>one way or the other, but I think it's interesting

0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.840
<v Speaker 1>and important enough to examine that there might be more

0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:57.639
<v Speaker 1>gray area than originally meets the eye. Doctor Irma Shadeki

0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:02.119
<v Speaker 1>Kardo's posits that the quote I witness testimony of the

0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:06.680
<v Speaker 1>hundreds of witnesses against Elizabeth Bathory are less compelling than

0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.960
<v Speaker 1>they might originally seem. For one thorso had restricted his

0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:15.080
<v Speaker 1>investigation only to the parts of the Hungarian Kingdom where

0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.960
<v Speaker 1>he had full power and where many of the tenants

0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.919
<v Speaker 1>were beholden to him. He obtained confessions under torture. The

0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.560
<v Speaker 1>vast vast majority of the testimony gathered is hearsay. There

0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:31.480
<v Speaker 1>are no firsthand accounts of anyone who was actually abused

0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.800
<v Speaker 1>by the Countess. Much of the later testimony came after

0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.199
<v Speaker 1>the witnesses would have seen a decomposing corpse on a

0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:43.440
<v Speaker 1>platform with Elizabeth standing beside it, while Thorzo was shouting

0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:46.119
<v Speaker 1>that this was one of her victims. I think that

0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:50.560
<v Speaker 1>would buy us anyone a little, at least subconsciously. But again,

0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.800
<v Speaker 1>though Thorso claimed that his lack of public trial was

0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:59.000
<v Speaker 1>to protect Elizabeth, it also conveniently prevented any recorded defense.

0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.440
<v Speaker 1>Her disgrace, and the rippling disgrace of the entire Bathory

0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:09.400
<v Speaker 1>family was irreconcilable. It was also fairly convenient for Thorso

0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.760
<v Speaker 1>that his own son, Imre, happened to be the same

0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:17.199
<v Speaker 1>age as Elizabeth's son, Paul. Paul, being the scion of

0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.879
<v Speaker 1>two powerful families, would easily eclipse Thorso's son when it

0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:27.320
<v Speaker 1>came to Hungarian politics, unless, of course, the Bathories family

0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:36.639
<v Speaker 1>fortunes changed. Dr shadeky Cardo's also raises a fascinating point

0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.560
<v Speaker 1>that many of the so called tortures that Bathory was

0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.640
<v Speaker 1>reported to have engaged in were actually well recorded medical

0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:49.159
<v Speaker 1>procedures for the sixteen hundreds. In Transylvania, where Bathory had

0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:53.359
<v Speaker 1>grown up, in the seventeenth century, it was considered the

0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:57.240
<v Speaker 1>duty of landowners and nobles to provide for the welfare

0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.480
<v Speaker 1>of their tenants and servants. The lady of the house

0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:06.040
<v Speaker 1>was responsible for the women and children. According to Schadecki Cardo's,

0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:11.280
<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth's letters aren't blood chilling manifestoes of a sadistic murderer,

0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:17.040
<v Speaker 1>their normal, reasonable business management. Elizabeth writes, petitioning the King

0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.440
<v Speaker 1>for her tenants, she installed in each of her estates

0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.560
<v Speaker 1>herbalists and healers, and appointed the same personal healer that

0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:28.359
<v Speaker 1>she used for her own children for her underlings. Coming

0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.239
<v Speaker 1>from Transylvania, Elizabeth was familiar with a more hands on

0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.240
<v Speaker 1>approach to herbal medicine and healing methods that would have

0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.040
<v Speaker 1>been unfamiliar to the local people when she moved with

0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:43.880
<v Speaker 1>her husband to western Hungary. One of Elizabeth's most famous,

0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.439
<v Speaker 1>quote unquote accomplices was a woman named Anna Darbuglia, a

0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.720
<v Speaker 1>Croatian midwife and healer and one of the few women

0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.240
<v Speaker 1>who performed rudimentary surgeons on her patients so that the

0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.560
<v Speaker 1>female patients wouldn't have to be treated by men. It

0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.480
<v Speaker 1>would have been a rare and strange sight, maybe for

0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.520
<v Speaker 1>some to see a woman doing something like blood letting,

0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.880
<v Speaker 1>even though blood letting at the time was a conventionally

0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:13.640
<v Speaker 1>accepted medical procedure. The medical texts of a contemporary Transylvanian

0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:18.520
<v Speaker 1>doctor Fence Papa peris contain a number of procedures that,

0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.520
<v Speaker 1>to the untrained eye, or to an eye mistrustful of

0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.720
<v Speaker 1>a woman holding a knife, might look suspiciously like torture.

0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:31.080
<v Speaker 1>Necrotic tissue needed to be cut from healthy flesh to

0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:37.000
<v Speaker 1>prevent infection from spreading. Maggots were frequent. Blight boils and

0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:41.480
<v Speaker 1>abscesses had to be lanced. Wounds needed to be cauterized

0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:46.600
<v Speaker 1>with red hot irons. For some ailments, hot cupping was recommended,

0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.560
<v Speaker 1>and for those with fever or rubonic plague, a weak,

0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.480
<v Speaker 1>sweating body would be shocked with an ice cold bath.

0:21:55.440 --> 0:22:00.000
<v Speaker 1>Singing nettles were an old wives cure for rheumatism and arthritis.

0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:04.639
<v Speaker 1>Some seamstresses suffered from boils under their nail beds, a

0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:09.800
<v Speaker 1>condition known as finger nail poison. The treatment was lancing

0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:14.480
<v Speaker 1>finger tips under the nails with needles. Hearing those treatments

0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:18.679
<v Speaker 1>out of context, and particularly if they were unfamiliar or

0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.640
<v Speaker 1>gasped done by a woman, you can almost see where

0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:27.080
<v Speaker 1>the stories of torture might have begun. Shadeki Cardos also

0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.640
<v Speaker 1>points out that the deaths that Dorzo ascribes to Elizabeth

0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:36.080
<v Speaker 1>happened to coincide with outbreaks of disease. The eight girls

0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:39.960
<v Speaker 1>whom Thurzo built his case around had possibly actually died

0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:44.000
<v Speaker 1>of the plague. They had been quarantined together and treated

0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:47.560
<v Speaker 1>by two of Elizabeth's servants, and they had died when

0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:51.919
<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth wasn't even at the castle. Elizabeth was frequently touring

0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:56.320
<v Speaker 1>between her estates. The pace and pre neticism with which

0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.399
<v Speaker 1>the rumors of Elizabeth Bathery's guilt took hold of the

0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:03.640
<v Speaker 1>Countryside could also possibly point to Thurso's haste to make

0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:09.240
<v Speaker 1>her guilt quote common knowledge. Common knowledge was accepted evidence

0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.800
<v Speaker 1>in court at the time. Elizabeth's confinement meant that her

0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.600
<v Speaker 1>relatives were able to take control of her valuable properties

0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:20.560
<v Speaker 1>a few of her son in law's new in advance

0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:25.960
<v Speaker 1>of impending quote surprise arrest. They even helped him to

0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:30.240
<v Speaker 1>arrange it. King Matthias's debts that he owed to Elizabeth

0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:39.520
<v Speaker 1>were conveniently dissolved. I don't know exactly where I stand

0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:42.800
<v Speaker 1>when it comes to a proclamation that Elizabeth Bathory was

0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:48.919
<v Speaker 1>either a sadistic monster or completely innocent a framed woman. Personally,

0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:51.639
<v Speaker 1>I tend to find it a little easier to believe

0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:55.680
<v Speaker 1>that a few hundred people living in close and unhygienic

0:23:55.840 --> 0:23:59.240
<v Speaker 1>quarters at the start of the sixteen hundreds were more

0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:02.439
<v Speaker 1>likely to have died from the plague than from a

0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:08.080
<v Speaker 1>cruel and unusual Lady Dracula. People were suspicious of powerful women,

0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:13.160
<v Speaker 1>and especially of powerful women with regional and religious differences.

0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:19.159
<v Speaker 1>Rumors were easy to spread, and Elizabeth Bathi's downfall financially

0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.960
<v Speaker 1>benefited many people in power. But on the other hand,

0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.120
<v Speaker 1>I also don't find it difficult to believe that a wealthy,

0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:32.280
<v Speaker 1>noble woman might have been exceedingly cruel, abusive, maybe even

0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:36.480
<v Speaker 1>deadly in her treatment of servants. You'll notice that throughout

0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:41.600
<v Speaker 1>this I didn't mention the whole bathing in blood thing. Well,

0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:47.640
<v Speaker 1>that's because that's objectively a complete fabrication. There were absolutely

0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:52.440
<v Speaker 1>no contemporary witnesses who alleged even rumors of Elizabeth bathing

0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:55.000
<v Speaker 1>in the blood of young women to preserve her own youth,

0:24:55.560 --> 0:24:58.960
<v Speaker 1>or doing anything with their blood. That rumor came over

0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:03.760
<v Speaker 1>a hundred years later during the Counter Reformation. In seventeen

0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:08.480
<v Speaker 1>twenty nine, the Hungarian Jesuit priests Laslow Taroshi used the

0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:13.040
<v Speaker 1>by then infamous saga of Elizabeth Bathory as a parable

0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:17.560
<v Speaker 1>to discuss the dangers of becoming Protestant. He wrote that

0:25:17.600 --> 0:25:21.240
<v Speaker 1>she was a Catholic who had broken bad and converted

0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.000
<v Speaker 1>to Lutheranism, and that unleashed in her a blood lust

0:25:25.080 --> 0:25:30.160
<v Speaker 1>that caused her, this demented Protestant to sadistically torture servants

0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:32.560
<v Speaker 1>and bathe in young blood in order to try to

0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:37.200
<v Speaker 1>stay young herself. It's a compelling detail, and kudos to

0:25:37.320 --> 0:25:41.639
<v Speaker 1>Taroshi for his imaginative creativity that still persists in the

0:25:41.680 --> 0:25:46.440
<v Speaker 1>popular culture today. But it's just not true. Elizabeth wasn't

0:25:46.480 --> 0:25:51.040
<v Speaker 1>even ever Lutheran. She was never elapsed Catholic. As I mentioned,

0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:55.359
<v Speaker 1>she was a lifelong Calvinist. So no blood lust. But

0:25:56.080 --> 0:25:59.440
<v Speaker 1>as for the murders, it's up to you to decide

0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:12.240
<v Speaker 1>what's to and what's merely rumor. That's the saga of

0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:16.119
<v Speaker 1>Elizabeth Bathory. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break

0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:29.480
<v Speaker 1>to hear a little bit more about her legacy. Lists

0:26:29.520 --> 0:26:33.200
<v Speaker 1>of pop history fun facts are littered with the type

0:26:33.200 --> 0:26:36.560
<v Speaker 1>of historical anecdote that seems like it should be true,

0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:40.199
<v Speaker 1>and so these anecdotes are just repeated often enough that

0:26:40.240 --> 0:26:43.800
<v Speaker 1>they become fact. One of those seems like it might

0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:47.399
<v Speaker 1>as well be true is the idea that, upon hearing

0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:52.160
<v Speaker 1>the rumors of this Eastern European countess from Transylvania, an

0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:56.040
<v Speaker 1>Irish author named Bram Stoker, while staying on the misty

0:26:56.119 --> 0:26:59.919
<v Speaker 1>northern coast of Scotland, was inspired to write Us to

0:27:00.000 --> 0:27:03.720
<v Speaker 1>worry about a man who sucked blood from others to survive.

0:27:04.600 --> 0:27:10.000
<v Speaker 1>His book, of course, became Dracula. Now there's no real

0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:15.080
<v Speaker 1>consensus on whether Bathory directly or even indirectly inspired Stoker,

0:27:15.680 --> 0:27:19.920
<v Speaker 1>but Bathory did inspire another recent character in pop culture.

0:27:20.640 --> 0:27:24.920
<v Speaker 1>In the video game Resident Evil Village, there's a glamorous

0:27:25.000 --> 0:27:29.199
<v Speaker 1>woman with a large black hat and sweeping white gown

0:27:29.600 --> 0:27:33.680
<v Speaker 1>who stands at over nine ft tall. The character is

0:27:33.760 --> 0:27:39.280
<v Speaker 1>named Countess Alcina or Lady Dimitrescu, and she became an

0:27:39.320 --> 0:27:44.240
<v Speaker 1>almost instant fan favorite. A villainist who rules over a

0:27:44.280 --> 0:27:50.720
<v Speaker 1>feudal peasantry with allegations of murder and cannibalism swirling around

0:27:50.800 --> 0:28:01.879
<v Speaker 1>her incredibly glamorous and incredibly tall person. Noble Blood is

0:28:01.920 --> 0:28:04.480
<v Speaker 1>a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:07.399
<v Speaker 1>from Aaron Mankey. The show is written and hosted by

0:28:07.480 --> 0:28:12.800
<v Speaker 1>Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Mankey. Alex Williams and

0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:16.680
<v Speaker 1>Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema il Keali

0:28:16.840 --> 0:28:20.200
<v Speaker 1>and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at

0:28:20.240 --> 0:28:22.679
<v Speaker 1>Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the

0:28:22.680 --> 0:28:25.640
<v Speaker 1>show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more

0:28:25.680 --> 0:28:28.880
<v Speaker 1>podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,

0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:32.280
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:33.840
<v Speaker 1>M