Elizabeth Báthory: a 17th-century 'serial killer'

Who was Elizabeth Báthory?

Born on 7 August 1560 into Protestant nobility, her family held dominion over Transylvania, a de facto independent principality within the kingdom (modern-day Romania), with her uncle Stephen Báthory ruling as prince as well as king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania.

Despite the accusations against her, this birthright meant that Báthory remained at liberty at Čachtice Castle, her domineering, Gothic pile on top of a hillside that had been a wedding present. In 1575, when still a teenager, she had been married to Count Ferenc Nádasdy, himself a member of a major aristocratic dynasty who went on to command the Hungarian army in wars against the Ottoman empire, and the couple had five known children together. It was after Nádasdy’s death in 1604 that the whispers and fears regarding Báthory began to proliferate.

That was also when her heinous crimes – torture and murder – intensified. Báthory, it was said, took pleasure in a catalogue of gruesome acts: stabbing victims under the fingernails with needles; cutting, burning, even biting their flesh; beating and starving them to death; leaving them outside to freeze, or covering them with honey so they would be attacked by insects. It was said she had a purpose-built torture chamber, and that she associated with witches.

Still, it was only after the allegations suggested that her victims had started to include young noble girls that they were taken seriously. Báthory supposedly invited daughters of the gentry to attend a form of finishing school at her castles (finishing being the operative word).

How many girls did Elizabeth Báthory kill?

The count palatine of Hungary, György Thurzó, was ordered to investigate and he took dozens of witness statements. He reached the conclusion that Báthory had killed at least 80 girls; although that may have been a fraction of the total number, which is said to have been more than 300.

On 29 December 1610, Thurzó had Báthory and four of her servants arrested. Her accomplices confessed and were put on trial, with three being executed and the last imprisoned for life, but she never stood trial for her crimes. Her noble status and the scandal that could have ensued convinced Thurzó to have her confined within Čachtice Castle instead.

How did Elizabeth Báthory die?

Confined in Čachtice Castle, reportedly in rooms that had been completely walled up with only small slits to allow food to be passed through, Báthory saw out the final few years of her life. Báthory was found dead, aged 54, on 21 August 1614.

If everything said about Báthory was true then she certainly deserves her reputation as the most prolific female serial killer in history. That is the title bestowed upon her by Guinness World Records. Today, she is also remembered essentially as a vampire, since a part of her legacy is that she would drink the blood of her victims as a means of preserving her youth. For that, she has sometimes been referred to as ‘Countess Dracula’.

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Was Elizabeth Báthory innocent?

But there is another possibility: Báthory was innocent and herself a victim of obscene accusations by those wishing to get rid of her or seize her money and lands, and it was from those machinations that her terrifying reputation grew. To this day, the most notorious detail about Báthory is that she actually bathed in the blood of virgins in a bid for eternal life – but that was an addition to her legend more than a century after her death.

Recent scholarship has suggested that political rivalries, familial greed and pervasive misogyny helped fuel the many rumours instigating her arrest. Her sons-in-law looked to take control of her estates, while the Hungarian king owed Báthory a significant debt so wasted no time in having that expunged. Most of Thurzó’s witness statements, it turned out, were not based on first-hand information; her servants’ confessions had been extracted under torture; and the huge death toll was said to have been based on a list Báthory kept, but was never found.

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The truth remains far from certain. Complaints about Báthory’s cruelty and violent proclivities had come years before her arrest after all, and not from a rival but a Lutheran minister named István Magyari. It seems, at least, plausible that she was guilty of a degree of sadistic behaviour – a callous treatment of the lower classes, for example, in the not entirely mistaken belief that her noble status protected her. To maintain that she tortured, brutalised and murdered hundreds of girls, let alone that she performed acts that could be described as vampiric, is quite another matter.

This article was first published in the January 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed