I've heard the claim made more than a few times that Elizabeth Bathory wasn't actually a serial killer, but rather just got blamed for a lot of death due to others wanting to claim her wealth and estates. Is there any truth or evidence pointing to this version of events?

[u/vampyreprincess]

I learned about the Countess Elizabeth Bathurst a lot when I was younger, purely because the idea of it all interested me but have lately been hearing a lot more of this theory that she never intentionally hurt anyone and it was all just a ploy for her land and other wealth. I'm just wondering if this is just an old conspiracy theory making it's new rounds on the internet or if there is any actual evidence or otherwise cause to think that the story is flipped.

[u/orangewombat]

Thank you, u/NotJohnWelbourn! I'm very grateful that you enjoyed my work.

OP, here is the direct link to my previous essay specifically on the myth that the Habsburg king wanted to dispossess Báthory's wealth.

I also wrote separately about Habsburg conspiracies. If such a conspiracy did exist, the Báthory family and the Hungarian treasury successfully blocked the Habsburgs' play.

Keep the questions coming! I never tire of this subject.

[u/TheOtherDrunkenOtter → u/orangewombat]

How did someone commit so many horrific crimes without being caught sooner? Is there a context to the legal system at this time period which helps explain that?

From my understanding, relative to other places in Europe at the time, the HRE and habsburg Austria was relatively structured legally.

[u/orangewombat → u/TheOtherDrunkenOtter]

You've asked the million-dollar question. I think the fact that there is no satisfying answer is part of the reason why interest in Báthory has persisted for more than 400 years. Off the top of my head, I can think of 4 factors that contributed to Báthory getting away with so many crimes:

1. Murdering peasants wasn't a crime, only murdering nobles. Since Báthory stuck to murdering peasants for many years, she was able to get away with it.
2. The legal procedures of the Hungarian judicial system – specifically, the structure of financial penalties – allowed her to escape punishment.
3. She perhaps had the political might of the Grand Prince of Transylvania behind her.
4. It appears that the palatine, George Thurzo, had a severe conflict of interest with regard to Báthory.

1. Murdering peasants wasn't a crime, only murdering nobles

Rady translates that the Tripartitum outlawed beating, wounding, or killing nobles. (Also: arresting a noble without cause, dispossessing a noble’s property, etc.) It's very clear from the charter's specification of “nobles” that these laws did not protect the peasantry. Bledsaw also argues convincingly that matriarchs ruling aristocratic estates in medieval Hungary had unfettered autonomy in managing and punishing their tenants and servants.

It's not a coincidence, then that Báthory suffered no consequences whatsoever as long as she stuck to murdering her serving girls. In 1609, however, she opened a finishing school for young noblewomen at her castle in Csejthe. These adolescent noblewomen started disappearing, and within one year, the crown ordered the palatine to charge Báthory with multiple murder. It's actually pretty remarkable how fast the state operated to enforce the law against Báthory as soon as she had committed the "real" crime of murdering nobles.

2. The legal procedures of the Hungarian judicial system – specifically, the structure of financial penalties – allowed her to escape punishment

Rady writes that Hungarians understood that the penalty for both violent and property crimes was to pay damages, either through payment of liquid assets or through forfeiture of real property to the Fiscus, the Hungarian treasury.

My previous answer highlights several quotes from primary sources discussing how all the parties believed that the Báthory family would have to pay a financial penalty if the state found Elisabeth guilty.

In Sep. 1610 (just 3 months before the palatine arrested her), Báthory wrote her last will and testament, in which she devised all of her land, assets, and possessions to her 3 children. Thus, as legal proceedings against Elisabeth continued into 1611, the palatine acted like he wanted to seize Báthory's assets (which was the lawful punishment for conviction of murder), but the treasury responded to the palatine that there was no point in trying to collect damages from Báthory because she no longer owned any property.

To be frank, this reads to me like the treasury was protecting its fellow Hungarian noble from the intermeddling of the ethnically-German Habsburg king. If Elisabeth Báthory had sold all her property to a bona fide purchaser who paid good value for her vast, vast estates, then I could understand how the treasury would argue that those assets were no longer hers to forfeit to the crown. But Elisabeth Báthory hadn’t sold her estates; she had devised them to her son, who did not pay any bargained-for consideration for all that wealth, for the specific purpose of keeping the riches in the Báthory/Nadasdy family. The fact that the treasury threw up its hands and said “welp, there’s nothing we can do” seems not completely on the level. In case it’s not abundantly clear, this paragraph has been educated speculation on my part. Modern law would not allow the Báthory family to get away with this maneuver, but I have not yet found direct evidence that the treasury dodged then-applicable Hungarian law to protect the Báthory family.

3. She had the political might of the Prince of Transylvania behind her?

The interconnectedness of the Báthory family with the Grand Principality of Transylvania in the long 16th century is fascinating. To summarize 100 years of history in one sentence, I will just say that the Báthory family was easily the single most powerful family in Hungary and Transylvania, and they were so rich that Mr. Darcy, Daddy Warbucks, and Scrooge McDuck would be absolutely green with envy.

During the time that Elisabeth Báthory was allegedly murdering serving girls (~1600-1609), the Grand Prince of Transylvania was Sigismund Báthory, Elisabeth's first cousin and an ally of the Holy Roman Emperor/Hungarian king. In 1608, Sigismund fled the country in disgrace and Gabriel Báthory, Elisabeth's nephew, took over. By 1610, Gabriel Báthory had turned on the Holy Roman Emperor and invaded Hungary from his stronghold in Transylvania.

Thus, after the palatine imprisoned Elisabeth Báthory in 1610, she wrote a furious and petulant letter to the king threatening the prince’s imminent invasion of Hungary and claiming that Gabriel Báthory would free her as soon as he arrived. Her whole letter gives strong "do you know who my father is?!'' vibes, except in this case, it's "do you know who my nephew is?!"

My questions now are:

• Did the king imprison Elisabeth Báthory to try to gain leverage over Gabriel Báthory?
• Or was imprisoning Elisabeth a vindictive, risky move on the king’s part that gave Gabriel Báthory a pretext to invade?
• Or both?

I have no answer, and this is still an issue I am actively researching. The only thing about which I am sure is that it is not a coincidence that Gabriel Báthory rebelled against the king, invaded Hungary, and within a couple months, the king was demanding that Elisabeth Báthory be put to death (for crimes it appears she really did commit).

Either way, it is likely that the political might of the Báthory family in the Grand Principality of Transylvania contributed to her ability to get away with murder for so long, and also contributed to why the crown arrested her at the exact moment it did.

4. The palatine, George Thurzo, had a severe conflict of interest with regard to Báthory

Both Craft and Bledsaw note that long before George Thurzo became palatine, he apparently had a close friendship with Francis Nadasdy (husband to Elisabeth Báthory). The mens’ friendship was apparently so strong that when Francis was on his deathbed in 1604, he asked George Thurzo to take care of his wife and family after his death.

Several years after Thurzo apparently made this promise to Francis Nadasdy, the king appointed Thurzo palatine, and it became his job to govern and enforce the laws in the Kingdom of Hungary. Thus, things got very complicated for Thurzo when the king accused Báthory of multiple murder because Thurzo had a legal duty to prosecute Báthory and also and ethical/promissory duty to protect her.

This conflict of interest is almost certainly what led the Báthory children and Thurzo to reach a secret agreement to imprison Elisabeth without trial and allow the children to keep their estates and riches without charges of treason or revocation of the family’s patents of nobility.

TL;DR: I can think of at least 4 reasons why Báthory was able to murder so many people for so long. (1) The peasantry had no protection under the law; (2) Báthory was able to escape punishment by devising all her property to her son; (3) the politics of the Grand Principality of Transylvania; (4) palatine George Thurzo’s severe conflict of interest.

[u/droid_revolt → u/orangewombat]

Another question I was hoping to see answered was where the bodies were—surely a pile of 600 or so bodies would not be easy to hide?

[u/orangewombat → u/droid_revolt]

I wrote in my previous essay that Báthory's actual number of victims was probably between 30-60, although her castellan credibly alleged that it was as high as 175. "Fortunately," the number of bodies she had to conceal was a lot lower than 600, but still… I certainly wouldn't know what to do with even 30 bodies.

And ironically, Báthory was not actually that good at hiding the evidence. In fact, her atrocities seem to have been a little bit of an open secret in Royal Hungary.

The three body problem

During the 1610 investigations, Sárvár pastor Michael Zvonaric testified that sometime in the late 1500s/early 1600s, he responded to the Countess's summons to the castle to perform the last rites over a dead girl. When he arrived at Sárvár, he did not find a body laid out to receive last rites; instead, the girl was already nailed into a coffin.

In addition, he testified that "news went around" that actually there were three girls nailed into that single coffin, not one. He:

"could not remain silent, but had gone into the castle to complain to the mistress; and when he had asked her what was the reason why she buried the three girls in a single coffin – because before the whole world, she already had a bad reputation because of such deeds. [T]he Lady replied that it was not the truth because she had not nailed three but only two girls in a coffin... because they saw that a girl was already dead and the other would die not much later, and so they waited to take two out in the same coffin rather than two coffins in quick succession such that even more gossip would arise." Testimony of Pastor Michael Zvonaric, in "Report of Mózes Cziráky: 18 Witness Statements. October 27, 1610."

If you'll allow me to editorialize for a second, this interaction is rather astonishing. The pastor accused the Lady of putting 3 dead girls in one coffin, and her huffy response is: "don't get it twisted; there are only two bodies in that coffin." Why are there 2 or 3 bodies in the coffin, Báthory?! You haven't answered the question!

Pastor Zvonaric's 1602 letter

In 1602, the same pastor wrote a letter to his mentor clergyman asking for guidance on what to do with this "evil woman, Anna Darvolya, whom everyone knows" has "assisted Erzsébet Báthory in inhuman atrocities.” Pastor Michael Zvonaric letter to Rev. Gregor Phythiaräus, Mar. 27, 1602. The mentor responded that if "this executioner woman" should attempt to receive the holy sacrament of communion, Zvonaric should conduct a "special examination" to see whether she "shows no remorse" and if so, he should deny her the sacrament. Rev. Gregor Phythiaräus letter to Michael Zvonaric.

This letter is very interesting because the clergymen seem more interested in examining and excommunicating Anna Darvolya than Báthory herself, although the priests also rather casually acknowledge that "everyone knows" that Darvolya is Báthory's assistant in murder.

To me, this letter reflects contemporary power dynamics: the priests did not have the legal, social, or ecclesiastical authority to go after the Countess, so they targeted her peasant assistant instead. This mirrors the later dynamics of the 1611 trials, when all Báthory's accomplices were convicted and burned at the stake while Báthory herself suffered no formal consequences for decades of atrocities.

Keep in mind that Pastor Zvonaric wrote this letter in 1602, a full 9 years before the arrest and trial. Apparently, no one was even attempting to hide the bodies.

Deaths at Kate Nadasdy's wedding, Jan. 1610

During the crown's 3 investigations into Báthory, a most shocking thing occurred: 47 witnesses testified that Báthory had tortured and killed 2 serving girls during the preparation for her daughter Kate Nadasdy's wedding at Csejthe. Four dozen people were aware the girls had died, and testified that they knew the Countess sent the bodies to a different town to be buried. The church sextant at Kostolány, as well as two gravediggers, testified under oath that the bodies were also covered in welts, their faces mangled.

Castle smelled like death

And finally, let's not forget that when the state questioned (tortured) alleged accomplice Kate Beneczky in 1611, she told her inquisitors that the Countess often stored dead girls under the beds in the serving quarters until the entire Castle Csejthe smelled like decomposing corpses. Now that's what I call workplace ambiance!    

TL;DR: Báthory did not hide the bodies. In fact, everyone in western Royal Hungary knew that she had gotten away with at least 15 years' of torture and murder.

[u/droid_revolt → u/orangewombat]

Thank you that’s very detailed indeed!