Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory

by Craft, Kimberly

  With Erzsébet’s powerful sons-in-law in league, Thurzó prepared to bring the matter to a conclusion. Before he took this final step, however, he himself had to be absolutely certain of the Countess’ guilt. In December, his Castellan at Bytča, Gáspár Bajáky (also spelled Nagy-Najáky, and even Casparus Echy)) recorded the testimonies of forty local villagers under oath who claimed, in like fashion, that they had heard stories of torture and murder at Countess Báthory’s court. Sometime before Christmas, Thurzó went to Csejthe to meet personally with Erszébet Báthory. He informed her of the numerous accusations lodged against her and asked her to account for it. He particularly wanted to know about the girls listed in Pastor Barosius’ report and the heavy denouncements that Rev. Ponikenusz was making from the pulpit.

  The one thing that we can say about Countess Báthory is that she was an incredible actress who could lie with a smile and turn on an almost hypnotic charm. In public, she portrayed an image of noble bearing, calm stoicism, and enlightened intelligence. Everything about her seemed normal to her peers: her letters, the way she entertained, her always-elegant demeanor. In public, this was a noblewoman who simply raised a finger or gave a slight nod of the head to summon servants. At least in front of other aristocrats, she was not some disheveled lunatic or shrill harpie. The accusations simply did not make sense when one saw this well-spoken, level-headed woman. Thurzó, no doubt, wanted to see for himself if his distantly related kinswoman could account for the bizarre allegations.

  In any case, the Countess replied with her usual charm and measured calm. While serving tea and cakes, she assured Thurzó that such accusations were pure nonsense and the mistake of Pastor Berthoni (Barosius), a very old man—many of the girls had simply died from an epidemic and had been buried hastily and in secret to avoid a panic. So it had been at Sárvár and the other estates. The Countess might also have retold the explanation given to the aristocratic parents, including the story of the girls’ bloody fight over jewelry. Whatever she said, she managed again to delay the inevitable. Thurzó left her castle without deporting her to a convent, arresting her, or further incident.

  Immediately afterwords, however, the Countess went into one of her rages, typical of stressful events. More girls died. As mentioned, whenever Erzsébet Báthory had to put on an act in public, whether through entertaining, attending a social function, or covering her tracks, it placed an absolutely enormous stress on her. Essentially, the pressure of playing the gracious host, submissive wife, or enlightened noble caused a murderous rage to well up within her. Whether this pathology was traced to brutalization she herself received, or some other imbalance, the rage was clearly psychotic. We know that when she suffered from illness or fretted about money, it also caused her to lose control. In some cases, she could not contain her murderous rage for even minutes after the conclusion of a stressful event.

  Erszébet’s servants were becoming noticeably careless, however. And it was getting harder for them to find ways in which to dispose of the bodies. Ficzkó recounted: “Beside the [bodies] referred to in Pozsony (Bratislava) already, five bodies were later tossed into a pit; two into the water canal in the Csejthe garden, one of which was dragged out by the dogs; two were brought at night to Leceticz (Lesticze) and buried in the church; these had been brought down from the castle where they had been murdered. The old women hid and buried the dead girls. Here at Csejthe, I myself helped to bury four: two at Leceticz, one at Keresztúr and one at Sárvár. Others were buried with chant (i.e., given ordinary funeral burials).”

  The other accomplices testified in like manner. Dorottya Szentes and Katalin Beneczky described how five girls had died once within a ten-day period at Csejthe. Having no idea what to do with the bodies, the remains were simply stacked underneath beds, against walls, or put into storage areas. At Sárvár, Katalin Beneczky dragged bodies into a fruit pit, and once right through the courtyard amidst a crowd on onlookers; the pastor buried the corpses that could not be hidden. Dorottya Szentes, with János Újváry’s help, buried another girl at Leseticz. At Sárvár, Katalin Beneczky was charged with the task of scraping out the floor of the house and burying bodies in there. With Dorottya Szentes’s help, she also hid bodies in the canal—which, unfortunately, were later uncovered by Count Zrínyi’s dogs and seen by his servant when he and Erzsébet’s daughter, Anna, were visiting.

  This time, the household staff stupidly dropped four dead girls over the walls of Castle Csejthe. Although they had hoped that the bodies would catch the attention of nearby wolves, it was the attention of nearby villagers that caused the real problem. These same villagers immediately reported what happened to the authorities.

  On Christmas Eve, six days before her imprisonment, the local clergy paid her a visit: Pastor Nicolaus Barosius from the town of Verbó, as well as other clergymen, all exorting her to repent from her evil deeds. Thurzó was also summoned again: he announced that he would also be returning to Castle Csejthe on Christmas Eve, this time with King Mátyás himself, and Imre Magyeri, young Pál Nádasdy’s guardian and tutor at Sárvár.

  Although the clergymen were likely nothing more than an irritation to her, the Countess dreaded Thurzó and the King. In fear of their arrival, Erzsébet went immediately to the Slovak forest witch, Erzsi Majorova. It is here that she requested a means in which to render herself “invisible” from her attackers. Though she probably did not expect a literal result, she would definitely have wanted the authorities to lose interest in her and go away. Around 4:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Majorova and the Lady prepared a special grey cake, braiding the dough like a pretzel and placing a communion wafer in the center of it. One supposedly could peer into the wafer to see the image of a person against whom the conjuring was performed. As servant István Vagy and Rev. Ponikenusz recounted, Erzsébet sat in front of the cake before the men’s arrival, chanting a spell for over an hour to “render [herself] invisible from her enemies.” Dough for two other cakes was made from the remaining ingredients, having been prepared from a special mixture of dirty bath water from a baking trough in which the Countess’ is said to have sat, as well as creek water and certain other “special” ingredients. One cake was readied to be served after dinner that evening; dough for a second cake was held in reserve should another batch be required. Fizckó and other witnesses assumed that the cakes were made specifically to poison the three guests.

  Whether Erzsébet actually intended to kill these men or merely use the cake as a magical means of driving them away from her, Fizckó stated in the original trial transcript that the King, Palatine and tutor all became ill after eating it, and even they themselves thought that she was trying to poison them. We know that they left shortly after this disastrous dinner party; the Countess’ plan to drive the men away from her worked, but not in quite the way that she had hoped. Immediately thereafter, Imre Megyeri filed a formal charge against the Countess with the Hungarian Parliament, alleging the murder of servant girls at Sárvár. As for Thurzó’s plan to settle the matter by sending Erzsébet off to a convent, all hope was now lost.

  With no further options available and, under orders from the King delivered on December 27th, Thurzó set out from Bratislava on a two-day ride to Csejthe. He was accompanied by Megyeri; Erzsébet’s sons-in-law, Counts Drugeth and Zrínyi; and an armed escort. He and his men arrived on the night of December 29, 1610, prepared to apprehend Countess Erzsébet Báthory and her accomplices.

  The same day that Thurzó set out from Bratislava, December 27th, his young wife, Countess Erzsébet Czobor, sent a letter to him. The letter is fragmented and obviously picks up on a prior dialogue between the two. It raises some interesting questions, however:

  My Lovely Soul, Dearest,

  As you requested, I sent a kitchen maid. They say that she (or he - Hungarian doesn’t indicate which) is still the same, but whether it's true or not, only God knows. Well, whatever commandment has been broken, then it is very likely that after this it will be easily done (or "to act even
against the others") and it is possible that these people provide false testimony against them. Who knows what is at the castle. They say that she does the beating (flogging/whipping) herself, with her hand, and if she had to meddle and if she were surely, then it would have to be thoroughly investigated, as Your Grace commanded. I will be taking care of matters here with all my might, my lovely soul, my beloved, and my lord.

  Erzsébet Czobor’s letter is, in many ways, a mystery as well as a key piece of evidence. We know that Countess Czobor married as a teen and was unable to read or write when she and György Thurzó met. Her husband tutored her, however. While, by this time, she could write, her style is nonetheless fragmented and unsophisticated. We know from correspondence that Countess Báthory and Countess Czobor had a cordial relationship and that, in some ways, Erzsébet might have even taken the much younger woman under her wing. We also know that Thurzó trusted his wife and confided intimate details regarding the case to her.

  Even two days before the raid, however, there still appears to be some uncertainty as to whether Countess Báthory, Thurzó’s long-time family friend and distant relative, was a monster or herself the victim of dreadful rumors. “Whether it’s true or not,” Countess Czobor mused, “only God knows.” There are also unanswered questions: when Countess Czobor says that she sent a maid as her husband requested, one has to wonder if that person was a spy who infiltrated the Báthory court, a guide who would lead Thurzó’s men to the victims, or someone completely unrelated to the present case.

  Also, when she says, “it is possible that these people provide false testimony against them,” one wonders if she was referring to servants who were spreading untruths against Countess Báthory or to the accused who might attempt to deceive the court. Finally, she concludes her letter with a promise to carry out mandates from her husband to the best of her abilities. We wonder whether that meant the ordinary care of the estate in his absence or something more directly related to the case.

  Shortly before Thurzó and his men arrived, Countess Báthory and the Mistress of Miava (Erzsi Majorova) spent an evening engaged in the magical arts. According to Rev. Ponikenusz in a letter to Éliás Lányi, the Mistress gave Erzsébet a spell. The two women went outside, watching the stars and clouds that night, accompanied by a scribe. The scribe was then ordered to take down the following utterance (he later revealed this writing to judicial authorities, apparently under pain of death were he to falsify it):

  Help, oh help, you clouds! Help, clouds, give health, give Erzsébet Báthory health! Send, oh, send forth, you clouds, 90 cats! I command you, Leader of the Cats, that you hear my command and assemble them together, from wherever they may be, whether they are on the other side of the mountain, beyond the water, beyond the sea—that these 90 cats come to you and, from you, should go straight into the heart of King Mátyás and also the heart of the Palatine! In the same way should they chew to pieces the heart of the Red Megyeri and the heart of Mózes Cziráky, so that Erzsébet Báthory shall not suffer any grief. Holy Trinity, so it is done!

  17

  THE TRIAL OF ERZSÉBET’S ACCOMPLICES

  In eary 1623, some 13 years after the Countess was arrested and nine years after her death, a servant of her son, Pál Nádasdy, wrote a piece called, Chronicle of Castle Csejthe, listing “some memorable events, which in this century (17th) have taken place in the dominion of Csejthe.” Under the entry for December 29, 1610, he simply wrote: “Lady Erzsébet Báthory was captured during dinner and next day brought into the castle.”

  As György Thurzó’s letter details, when his men entered Csjethe Manor that night, they found the bodies of dead or dying girls strewn about, all having suffered from torture: beaten, flogged, burned, and stabbed. Within a few hours, additional bodies and victims would be found within the castle itself.

  At least 30 known witnesses—townspeople and servants of Thurzó—arrived to take part in what was clearly a long-awaited spectacle. The manor house located in town was thoroughly searched, and then the Countess was escorted up the hill to Castle Csejthe, accompanied by the crowd and party of armed men. Witness testimony from those present reveals what happened next: the procession went directly to the castle keep, the central fortification containing both main tower as well as prison (dungeon). A search for bodies began, and the group immediately found what they were looking for. While the Countess stood by watching in silence, the men came upon the body of a dead girl. According to Csejthe Castle Provisor, Michael Herwoyth, a coat was placed over the body and it was taken out on a cart, “before the eyes of even this Lady Widow.” The Lady departed soon after, and upon doing so, the men gathered about to inspect “the dead bodies down there more closely.” Herwoyth reported seeing “cruel injuries” to the victims’ cheeks, shoulder blades, and hands, inflicted with large wounds and severely burned. The flesh, he alleged, had been torn out with pliers.

  Martin Vychko, another witness present that night, also saw how “before the eyes of the Lady Widow, a dead girl lying in a box, who had been killed by cruel blows, was put into a cart.” Vychko also found another girl who had been tortured but was still alive, with wounds between her shoulders where the flesh had been cut out and her right hand and arm permanently mangled.

  “Who cut you?” he asked her.

  “The woman named Katalin cut me with pliers,” she replied. “She ripped out the black and blue marks and the festering flesh. However, the Lady Widow Nádasdy hit and beat me with her hand.”

  The victim was later taken to and treated by a doctor in Újhely, where she stated that the Lady Widow Nádasdy herself destroyed the right arm and hand.

  Nobleman András Pryderowyth testified like the others and added that he was able to see numerous slash marks on the body of the dead girl taken out on the cart, along with shackle marks on her neck. Another witness claimed that this girl had been strangled execution-style. The wounds found on still another girl were so deep from the flesh being cut out, “that one could easily stick a fist through them.” Pryderowyth found an older woman amongst the group, still alive, whose feet were bound together. After freeing her, the woman recounted that she had been “so tied because she had refused to hand over her daughter to the Lady Widow Nádasdy.”

  The Countess returned to her manor house where she spent the night, while the men continued searching and cleaning out the castle. She gave a statement in which she maintained her innocence: any wrongdoing was the sole activity of her servants. The four servants apprehended with her—the three old women and Ficzkó—were held overnight (the women in town and Ficzkó within the castle) before being taken in chains to Bytča for formal proceedings. The next day, on December 30th, Lady Widow Nádasdy was taken back up to Castle Csejthe and formally imprisoned there, while her accomplices, now held in the prison of Bytča castle, had their confessions tortured out of them before the trial began.

  According to deposition testimony, the local witnesses agreed that, at this point, the Countess was being held in the underground castle prison or dungeon—the same place from which the bodies of her victims were brought out the previous night. Members of the clergy, including Rev. Janós Ponikenusz from Csejthe, Rev. Nicolaus Barosius from Verbo, and Rev. Zacharias from Leszetice, went to visit her in prison on the last day of December.

  In a letter to Élias Lányi, written on January 1st, Rev. Ponikenusz recounted what happened that day. By this point, before any trials had even taken place, he already knew that a judgement against her had been rendered—that she would be taken to the tower (or keep) “and into eternal prison, walled in, locked up”—and that confessions had already been extracted from her accomplices through torture.

  Ponikenusz stated that they called on the Countess to “comfort her with prayers and support” so that she would not fall into temptation. Immediately upon seeing the priests, however, she flew into a rage: “You priests are the cause of my captivity!”

  She spoke furiously in Hungarian. Rev. Zacharias, Pastor of Leszetice, kne
w the language, but Ponikenusz spoke only Slovak and turned helplessly to his interpreter. Rev. Zacharias immediately apologized to her in Hungarian. His apology calmed her down momentarily, to which she then said to him, "You might not be at fault, but the pastor of Csejthe is!”

  Rev. Zacharias had obviously dealt with her before. He spoke softly, as if to calm a lunatic or wild animal: "Your Grace should not believe this.”

  "I can prove with witnesses that it is so."

  At this point, Rev. Ponikenusz, who had managed to catch up with the conversation through his interpreter, declared, "I have preached God's word, and if it caused Your Grace to examine your conscience once, I have nothing to do with it, because I never named you."

  The Countess replied testily in her native Hungarian, “Then you—you will die first—and then Mr. Megyeri! You two have brought all this trouble upon me and are the cause of my arrest. What," she said," don’t you believe me that, because of this situation, a revolt will soon take place? The Hajduk (Transylvanian farmer soldiers), who have already gathered beyond the Theiss (river), have written to me yesterday that even the Prince of Transylvania will avenge my wrong!"