Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory

by Craft, Kimberly

  Some days later, when the Countess decided to take a trip to the nearby spa at Pieštány with her daughter, she sent Katalin Beneczky to retrieve one of the girls to accompany them. From the trial transcripts, we learn that Katalin herself sometimes refused to perform beatings, such that she herself was punished so severely that she once needed a month of bedrest to recover. It is clear that Anna Darvolya, Dorottya Szentes, and Ilona Jó were the most vicious. For some reason, however, the Countess retained the meaker Katalin Beneczky in her employ—and allowed her to remain alive—despite her refusal to participate fully. In fact, Beneczky was often given the task of hiding bodies or finding new girls. Evidently, the Countess had a soft side for her. It was also said that Beneczky would sneak food to the girls at great risk to herself. In any case, she found all of the girls in deplorable condition as a result of Szentes’ actions; they had passed out from hunger, exposure and beatings.

  Returning to the Countess, Katalin said nervously, “Not a single one is in a position to travel with Your Grace.”

  Enraged with Szentes, the Countess clapped her hands together and declared that this should not have happened. The girls were then revived, only to be mercilessly beaten by the Countess and Szentes; they later died in a room of the castle.

  15

  THE GYNAECAEUM (1609-1610)

  Anna Darvolya, who had been described as taking particular delight in torment and the one who taught the Countess and others how to torture servants, suffered a blinding stroke and become incapacitated, probably around the year 1609. At this point, the Countess turned more and more to Erzsi Majorova, the forest witch, for advice. In witness testimony, this woman was referred to as the Lady Steward or House Mistress of Miava, indicating that she held a close position to the Countess and, perhaps, had authority over even the four remaining accomplices who ran the Lady’s staff of domestics. It does not appear, however, that she actually lived at the court of Csejthe but, rather, only made appearances when summoned.

  Unfortunately, dealings with the forest witch may ultimately have contributed to the Countess’ downfall. We know that she was becoming out of touch with reality, obsessing more and more over her advancing age and vulnerability. When politics and diplomacy let her down, she turned to black magic for assistance. Erzsi Majorova suggested that the Countess try more drastic measures: the blood of noble girls would have a more powerful influence than that of commoners. Erzsi began supplying her with spells, potions, and magical cakes, as well.

  It may be that the Countess had to turn to a fresh supply of noble girls since the peasant stock was quickly drying up. As rumors continued to spread about the disappearance of girls, parents began hiding their daughters when the Countess passed through town. Offers to work at the castle, whether for high wages, promises of marriage, or large payouts to the family, were increasingly being refused. Erzsébet’s helpers had to go out farther now and work harder to secure a steady supply of new female staff members—in some cases, traveling as far as Vienna—and they also began to engage a network of locals to help them. The payoffs worked. Later trial testimony would incriminate both nobles and commoners alike who participated in the procurement of girls, and the list of accused male and female “girl catchers” was long: Lady Anna Welykey; Lady Judith Pogan; the Lady Szell; Erzi Majorova; Dorottya Szentes; Janós Fizckó; Ilona Jó Nagy; the wives of Janós, György, and István Szabo; Dániel Vas; Katalin Homonnay; the Widow Keöcsé; and the wives of Janós Bársony, János Liptay, Miklós Kardos, and Balthasar Horváth.

  Someone eventually hit on the idea of creating a reason for girls of noble birth to come directly to the Countess rather than trying to solicit them. In the winter of 1609, Countess Erzsébet opened an academy of etiquette, a sort of finishing school for high- born young women, called a Gynaecaeum (Latin for “Women’s Residence”). The academy not only brought in much-needed funding, it also provided a fresh supply of young maidens. Apparently, the rumors had not yet spread amongst the aristocracy. The Countess’ social status enticed noble families to send their daughters to her for instruction in the social graces. Some of these young women were even related to her by blood or through marriage.

  It was not long, however, before noble family members discovered that their daughters were either missing or admission to see them was strangely forbidden. Nobleman János Belanczky became concerned when he received no word from his sister who had recently been admitted to the Lady’s Gynaecaeum. Accompanied by his friend, Martin Chanady, the two men finally went to Erzsébet Báthory’s court at Beckov to demand the girl’s return. The Countess refused. Belanczky then demanded he at least be allowed to see his sister. The two men waited nearly an hour. The girl was finally brought out but, according to Martin Chanady, “she was severely weakened because of the great pain from torture and torment, so much that she could hardly hold out her hands, bitterly whining and crying.” Chanady recounted that she had been tortured to death after that and buried in Beckov. Why Belanczky and Chanady left the girl behind is not discussed in the testimony regarding this event.

  Noblewoman Anna Zelesthey also testified that her daughter, Zsuzska, had been given to the court where she had been so badly beaten and tortured that the flesh literally fell from her bones before she died. How she knew this is not discussed in her deposition, nor whether she did anything or not to attempt a rescue. Nobles Melchior and Paul Nagyvathy testified that their sister had been entrusted and passed on to the Gynaecaeum; the brothers made extensive inquiries regarding her but learned only that she had died there. Nobleman Gaspar Ztubyczay lost his sister Anna; for Georgius Tukynzky, Benedict Barbel, and Dorothea Jezernyczky, it was a daughter.

  Michael Herwoyth, Provisor of Csejthe Castle, said that “one could hear everyday the sounds of beatings being heard from her Gynaecaeum, including the crying and lamenting of the beaten girls; the fact that they were beaten more and more often and that they could be heard crying changed nothing….” The Castellan at Csejthe, Michael Horwath, stated that he knew of seven girls who had died at the Gynaecaeum, and that they had been buried in the little garden behind the courtyard at Csejthe. Unfortunately, the bodies were not buried deeply enough; dogs promptly dug up the bodies.

  Even relatives of faithful servants were not exempt from torture and death. Janós Deseö, Castellan of Castle Keresztúr, testified that his niece, Kata Berényi, had been accepted at the Countess’ court. Rumors quickly circulated, however, that the girl was being beaten severely. He went first to one of Erzsébet’s accomplices, asking her to see his niece and perhaps give her a little money. The following is his account of what happened.

  According to Deseö, the old woman said, “If you value your head, you should not dare to try this without the knowledge of Her Grace.”

  Deseö learned that the Countess was planning an extended trip to Csejthe; she planned to take the niece with her for an unknown period of time, and he wished to intercept her traveling party before they left. As the horses were being fixed to the carriages, he met up with the Countess.

  “Your Grace,” he said, bowing to her, “Might I please see my niece before you take your leave? I hear you are going to take her along to Csejthe and no one knows when I might be able to see her again.” He added breathlessly, “I also want to give her some money.”

  Avoiding eye contact, the Lady replied evenly, “You definitely cannot speak with her now.”

  As his face fell, she added, “But if you want to see her, you can see her when she climbs into the carriage.”

  She then turned in a rage and hurried to her coach. At this point, only two horses had been hitched, yet she still ascended the carriage, believing the entire team to be ready. Meanwhile, Deseö caught sight of his niece. She was freezing and in tears, and seeing her brought him to tears, as well. He ran after the Countess.

  “Merciful Lady,” he begged, “please do not take my niece with you! I implore you in the Name of God—not by me alone but on behalf of all my relatives.”

 
The Countess pretended not to hear. Deseö persisted.

  “We indeed see that she does not know how to serve the will of Your Grace.”

  Erzsébet turned to him now, furious.

  “I certainly will not give her back, because she has already escaped from me three times. All the more will I kill her!”

  She cried to the coachman to hurry on now, while Janós Deseö grabbed onto the coach, weeping and begging. The horses secured, the coach lurched forward. Deseö recounted that his niece never returned and that she was later beaten to death.

  . . . . .

  We also know that by this time, the Countess was getting sloppy. She had managed to hide direct evidence of her torturing for years such that few knew more than rumors as to how the girls had actually died. But not any longer. The girls were now appearing in public with bandaged hands, welts, black and blue marks on their faces, and burn scars. And efforts to keep the beatings a complete secret were also slipping.

  For example, when the Countess went to Trencsén in early 1610, György Pellio, a young man from town, saw one of her girls bound and violently beaten and lashed near the river. The girl was then forced into the icy water in her clothes and not permitted to remove them when taken out. Another local, Georgius Habdak, testified under oath that he had seen girls “who were cruelly shattered and covered in bleeding wounds,” and kept shackled by the creek. Michael Pepliczky said that in the autumn of 1610, when the Countess came to Csejthe, he saw “two ladies from her entourage with bruises and black and blue marks, and their faces scratched as if by nails.” Martin Gonda said that he himself “often saw virgins with swollen faces and hands covered with blue patches.” Andreas Somogy, a city official in Újhely, saw two girls whose hands were burned so badly that they needed help ascending into their carriage, and Judge Tomás Jaworka had frequently seen the faces of the virgins in her retinue “disfigured and covered with blue spots from numerous blows.” When craftsman Adam Pollio was called to the castle to do a job, he actually witnessed a “naked girl with her feet shackled to a table.” Perhaps the worst slip occurred when a tortured servant girl managed to escape and make her way back to town, a knife still stuck in her foot.

  In addition to townspeople, church officials and grave diggers also saw their fill. Janós Palenyk saw for himself the bodies of the girls who died during the wedding celebration of Katalin and György Homonnay, “covered with horrible wounds, their faces crushed, burned and full of blue spots.” The sexton at the church in Kosztolány, György Mladych, added that they were “disfigured…shattered and covered with stains,” and Michael Palenyk testified to the same.

  Even the household staff was seeing direct evidence now: Sárvár servant, Ferenc Török, testified to seeing girls with their arms tied up “such that their hands were blue and blood came from the fingers,” and the knight Ferenc Bornemissze said that, once, as he arrived into the house of the Lady, he witnessed girls “with their hands bound, wrapped with rein straps and hanging from the iron lattice at the window by their hair.”

  Sárvár Judge, Gergely Páztory (a man who would witness the Countess’ Last Will and Testament) had an odd encounter with henchman, Janós Ficzkó, the boy kept on staff by the Countess to assist with torturing and burying girls. While in Csejthe, one of the judge’s servants got into a fight with Ficzkó. When Ficzkó became enraged and began beating the servant mercilessly, the judge stepped in. Ficzkó immediately ran inside to the Lady to complain.

  Countess Báthory came out. Calling to the judge, she demanded, “Why have you upset Ficzkó?”

  The judge answered, “Because he is a bad person who hit my servant. If my servant does something wrong, I can punish him for it.”

  The judge did not stop there but, rather, levied an accusation against Her Ladyship: “I am rather surprised that Your Grace keeps such a bad man in your court. You should have a chat with him about the things he sees and hears around here. Just now he spoke of things, which, if Your Grace knew, would certainly not be good to publicize. He just told us that five dead girls would be hidden under the hemp!”

  The Countess paused and then said, “Tomorrow I will ask him what he said.”

  According to the judge, the mistress summoned Ficzkó the next day, “but said not a single word and asked him nothing, but rather talked about other things.”

  The judge went on to say that, during the war, when they had fled to Sárvár, he saw an unsealed crate in the Lady’s house, and it was said that the dead girls would be shut in there. Henchman Ilona Jó, who would later be executed for complicity, was actually taking the box out from the castle when a nobleman from Zopor, named Sebestyén Orbán, asked her, “What is really in that box, Ms. Ilona?”

  She is said to have replied, “Ask not, on my soul, your Honor!”

  The judge added that, once when he was traveling with the Countess as part of her entourage, they took overnight accommodations. There, he saw a bag packed with small chains and locks. When the loaded bag was taken from the carriage and brought into the house, he asked Ilona Jó, “For what do we need these chains and locks?”

  Her reply was simple: “At night, all the girls are put in chains.”

  Members of the area nobility also made allegations. Lady Anna Welykey (who, herself, would be accused of procuring girls for the Countess) recounted that she had once asked Lady Widow Nádasdy to bring her girls around again so as to introduce them to the local aristocracy. Countess Báthory is said to have replied, “Ah, how could I trust or introduce these girls after so many bad and terrible things are told far and wide about them.” She then turned to Lady Welykey and added, “Those whores lie.”

  But what was perhaps most shocking were allegations of exactly how these girls were being tortured and killed: washed with and made to roll on the floor in nettles; pins stuck into their lips and under the finger nails; needles jammed into their shoulders and arms; floggings on the breasts while held in chains; their hands, arms and abdomens scorched with burning irons; chunks of skin wrenched from their backs with pliers; noses, lips, tongues and fingers pierced with needles; mouths forced shut with clamps; flesh cut out of the buttocks and from between the shoulders, then cooked and served to them; flesh and private parts singed with candles; knives plunged into arms and feet; hands crushed and maimed; fingers cut off with scissors and sheers; red-hot pokers shoved up vaginas; bodies beaten to death with cudgels; lashings until flesh fell from the bones; and girls made to stand naked in the cold, doused with water, or submerged up to the neck in icy rivers.

  In a matter of weeks, in fact, the entire “school” had been wiped out. Instead of using her usual excuse of an epidemic, this time Erzsébet concocted an elaborate explanation: one of the girls had murdered all the rest because of her greed for their jewelry. The child later committed suicide when Erzsébet’s servants discovered what she had done.

  This time, the Countess had gone too far. Nearly a dozen complaints from the families flooded both the Palatine’s and King’s Courts, specifically accusing the Countess of torturing and murdering young girls from the Hungarian aristocracy. When news reached the King that noble girls had been murdered, he had what he needed to push for a criminal conviction.

  16

  THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE COUNTESS (1610)

  By 1610, time was running out for Countess Báthory. Ironically, the man most responsible for whether she would live or die for her crimes was not the king or emperor but, rather, her family confidante, György Thurzó. Thurzó came from an old and distinguished line. Together with the Fuggers Dynasty of Augsburg, the Thurzós were one of the wealthiest families of the 15th century, controlling the vast mining industry of central Slovakia. Unfortunately, by the mid-16th century, the Thurzó lineage was on the verge of dying out. György Thurzó’s father, who served as a Catholic bishop (although not ordained) in Nitra, eventually left the Church, converted to Lutheranism and married in order to preserve the line and consolidate the family fortune.

  Györg
y Thurzó received a magnificent education in Vienna, studying, in fact, with companion, Prince Ernst Hapsburg. We know that Thurzó could read and write in Hungarian, Latin, German, and Slovak, was versed in the humanities, and studied law. Although raised a Lutheran, György Thurzó was politically savvy enough to know his interests would be well served by maintaining good relations with the Catholic Hapsburgs. He also believed that the Hapsburgs comprised the only force realistically capable of overpowering the invading Turks.

  When Thurzó finally rose to the status of Palatine in 1609, the same post that Tamás Nádasdy had held, he became second in command to the king. The palatine functioned like a governor or prime minister, representing the king in all political matters and holding appropriate judicial as well as military rank. Amidst the political and religious turmoil of the time, Thurzó would become well known for his diplomacy and ability to draw compromise out of opposing parties. He would certainly need to bring all of his skill to bear in the coming months with Her Ladyship, the Widow Nádasdy.

  By February of that year, anonymous complaints and rumors of Countess Erzsébet Báthory’s torturing and killing, including the murder of noble girls, had reached both György Thurzó and King Mátyás himself. Of all the nobles and renowned clergy who knew of the Countess’ activities, the parties who brought an actual written report to the authorities were probably the most unlikely of all: an elderly country priest, recently retired, and his relatively inexperienced replacement.