Blood-Bathing Countess: Bathory's 'Killed Over Six Hundred' May Not Be So Certain

Hungary had a countess named Elizabeth Báthory, born in 1560, who married a count with distinguished military exploits while still in her teens. Her husband was often away at war, dying in 1604, leaving her to manage the castle and a large tract of land alone.

In 1610, she was arrested, charged with torturing and killing young maidservants. At the trial there were hundreds of witnesses, whose accounts varied—some said she killed fifty, some three hundred, some over six hundred. The figure of six hundred fifty came from a servant who claimed to have seen it in her account book, but no one had ever seen that book. She herself did not appear in court, but was confined in her own castle, with the windows sealed up and only a small opening left for delivering food; she died four years later.

Several of her servants were executed: some had their fingers cut off, some were put to death.

The "blood bath" story did not appear until over a hundred years later: that she bathed in the blood of young girls to preserve her youth. The earliest written record is from a book in the 1720s, by which time the trial had already been over for more than a century.

Now some historians believe Báthory's case had political motives: she was very wealthy and powerful, the king owed her a large sum of money, and the relatives sent by the king to arrest her—once she was imprisoned, the debt need not be repaid, and her property could be divided up. The trial at the time did not follow normal procedures either; she was not allowed to defend herself.

Whether she actually killed anyone, and how many, is now difficult to determine. Her castle is now in Slovakia, reduced to ruins; tourists climb the hill, and someone will tell them: here once lived a "Bloody Countess."

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