Vulgar History - Elizabeth Bathory： Serial Killer？

00:00:00.000 Hi, everyone. Just a few quick announcements before we get into today's show. First of all,

00:00:04.540 my book, Rebel of the Regency, The Scandalous Saga of Carolina Brunswick, Britain's Uncrowned

00:00:09.220 Queen is now available to buy wherever you get books. Go to rebeloftheregency.com for all the

00:00:14.960 links so you can buy yourself a copy. And if you want to meet up with me in person, I'm going on

00:00:19.840 tour. I'll be doing a book event on February 19th in Halifax, Nova Scotia at the Central Library.

00:00:25.560 and then on february 27th i'll be in vancouver british columbia at iron dog books all the info

00:00:31.600 about these events is at rebel of the regency.com just click on events and i've got some more events

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00:00:41.120 i can't wait to see you all in person enjoy today's episode

00:00:55.560 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne Foster and today we have a very special guest. We're talking with author Shelley Puhack about her new book about Elizabeth Bathory.

00:01:09.440 And perhaps you've heard of Elizabeth Bathory.

00:01:11.600 She's one of the more notorious figures in history.

00:01:14.780 There's a lot of vampire lore around her. 0.95

00:01:17.800 There's various horror movies that feature her.

00:01:20.380 And what Shelley has done in her new book, The Blood Countess, Murder, Betrayal, and

00:01:25.140 the Making of a Monster, is she literally went to Transylvania and other places in Eastern

00:01:30.800 Europe to look at these documents and records to figure out who was Elizabeth Bathory really.

00:01:35.780 why was she accused of being a serial killer and what was the real story

00:01:39.800 and Shelley Puhack long-time listeners of this podcast may recognize that name

00:01:43.880 she's also the author of The Dark Queens which is the book subtitle The Bloody Rivalry That Forged

00:01:50.960 the Medieval World The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhack is a seminal text for this podcast it's

00:01:55.820 a book she wrote about the iconic medieval queens Fredegand and Brunhild it really

00:02:00.700 reoriented my whole brain into how a historical biography of a woman could be written. Anyway,

00:02:07.680 I was so delighted to have Shelley back on the podcast to talk about her new book.

00:02:12.380 It's such a great conversation and it's such a great book. So here is my conversation with

00:02:16.460 Shelley Puhack about The Blood Countess. Okay, so I'm joined by Shelley Puhack, who listeners

00:02:26.340 may already know is the author of The Dark Queens, the book that introduced us all to

00:02:30.300 Fredegand and Brunhild. And we're here to talk about your new book. Welcome, Shelly.

00:02:36.280 Thank you so much for having me back.

00:02:38.720 So your new book, The Blood Countess, Murder, Betrayal and the Making of a Monster,

00:02:44.240 which is a book about Elizabeth Bathory. First, I'm so curious to know, why did you choose to

00:02:50.820 write a book about Elizabeth Bathory? Like how did you hear about her in the first place? Do

00:02:55.200 you remember? I do. So in my twenties, I have family in Slovakia and I undertook this like

00:03:01.120 really ill-advised tour of castle ruins with one of my cousins. I was going to like

00:03:06.360 photograph them and I do some sort of like travel article. And through the course of that,

00:03:12.200 it was actually like super fun, very fascinating. But I still remember we were in Eastern Slovakia.

00:03:17.980 it was twilight, climbing a hill, slipping and sliding. It's like damp and come to these like

00:03:25.280 runes that are silhouetted. And I have this shivering fit. And I say to my cousin, whose

00:03:30.780 castle is this? And she's laughing. She's like, oh, it must be the ghost of Liza's Bathory. And

00:03:35.480 I'm like, who's that? She's like, I can't believe you don't know. And so she tells me all of this,

00:03:40.500 you know, folklore about this sort of gruesome, cruel Hungarian mistress who murdered Slovak 0.82

00:03:46.520 girls. And I'm like, wow. And it always stuck in the back of my mind. And I was always very 0.56

00:03:54.240 curious about it. And then as I've traveled and returned, I've seen that this like tourist industry

00:03:59.720 around her has really exploded and you could kind of find her everywhere once you start looking for

00:04:06.520 her. So I was, you know, I'd finished one project and I was like, I wonder if this 400 year old

00:04:13.140 mystery like this is one of history's most intriguing cold cases to me if we could solve

00:04:18.540 it like you know can it be solved now and the answer is yes and the answer is yes because there's

00:04:26.620 so you in terms of researching this like elizabeth bathory what we're going to do listeners on this

00:04:31.740 episode like we're going to go through like kind of her life story kind of what are the rumors about

00:04:36.020 her where did they come from but in terms of you like being a historical investigator like you're

00:04:40.860 looking at handwritten documents in hungarian in latin like you can't see this she's making faces

00:04:49.380 um but like what was that like what my gosh so i have to tell you i think this book just about

00:04:56.280 broke my brain and there'd be days where i'd be like i have such a headache why do i have a headache

00:05:00.040 and then i realized my brain was just tired it was like stop like this hurts but luckily i was

00:05:07.040 working with like a really talented team of you know there's people who actually specialize in

00:05:13.580 old handwriting and deciphering old handwriting specifically from this period and then translators

00:05:18.520 who aren't just hungarian to english translators but also work specifically in the language and

00:05:26.220 kind of the phrasing of this time period because part of the reason why we have this story of this

00:05:31.880 horrific serial killer. It has a lot to do with, you know, poor transcriptions and then a lot of

00:05:37.240 mistranslations. It's very understandable given like the condition of a lot of these sources

00:05:41.440 and the difficulty of translating Hungarian and then the double difficulty of translating it,

00:05:48.360 you know, when we're, we have people that are using terms that haven't been used since the

00:05:52.520 15th or 16th century or terms that now mean something completely different.

00:05:56.760 Well, as an example, there's one where it talks about a butcher.

00:06:00.460 And so like to somebody translating it, they could just be like, oh, my God, like a killer, a murderer.

00:06:05.680 But you like some of your research shows like, well, this could also mean somebody who eats meat on a day when they're not supposed to eat meat.

00:06:12.740 Or it could mean also like a person who's like doing medical stuff.

00:06:16.680 Like it's a word that could it's not just.

00:06:19.800 But you can see how somebody translated that as a butcher.

00:06:22.020 They're like, oh, my God, it's a killer.

00:06:23.440 This is evidence.

00:06:24.260 Right. And there's another great example of there's this word for it's been translated over and over about Elizabeth Bathory in her will writes that she wants to, you know, be buried in her wedding dress and she wants to keep her wedding dress.

00:06:39.240 And we have these images of this woman and her wedding dress sort of wandering around the castle.

00:06:43.920 You know, she's she's kind of half mad. And it's a mistranslation because that word in that time period really meant what she's referring to was her bridal property.

00:06:53.020 And that meant the property she had been given, you got a gift, a morning gift after you consummated

00:06:58.660 your marriage. And this was the property she had been given as a wedding gift. So she's saying

00:07:03.540 not, I want to be buried in my wedding dress. I want to, you know, wear my wedding dress until

00:07:08.680 my death. But she's actually saying, I want to go live in the property I was given when I was

00:07:15.280 married and I want to, you know, I will be there until I die. So there's like a lot of these

00:07:20.660 mistranslations that have sort of, we were playing this game of telephone and you can see how things

00:07:26.960 have been distorted and twisted. And each one has sort of set us off course. And I think, well,

00:07:33.940 but my listeners will remember, like long-time listeners, I did an episode about Elizabeth

00:07:37.860 Bathory, like 2019. And at that point, like from the research, I was able to see. So I was reading

00:07:43.940 your book and I was just like, oh yeah, that's what I know. I'm like, oh yeah, no, I said that.

00:07:47.100 I perpetuated that rumor in my episode, but it's like, people don't know, like you need

00:07:50.940 to, to really dig into so many things about her story. And you say in the afterward of your book,

00:07:57.840 like there's people in Slovakia or I don't know where, but there's people who are,

00:08:01.680 who have been doing this research and you're just kind of the first

00:08:04.060 major English language book to be kind of sharing this information. Is that right?

00:08:09.660 That's absolutely right. So there are a whole host of kind of scholars and historians who

00:08:14.460 have been digging into this that, you know, starting with like the 80s on. And they've done

00:08:20.700 like a fabulous job. And I think part of the problem for the Western world is just that

00:08:24.920 that hasn't, because of language, translation's been accessible to kind of a wider like English

00:08:30.300 speaking audience. So what I'd like to do today is to just kind of go through sort of in a very

00:08:37.760 overarching way. We don't need to get into all of the Hungarian politics that you've explained so

00:08:41.780 well in your book. There's my cat. Anyway, there is somebody, I don't know if you look at your

00:08:47.160 reviews and like, I understand if you don't, but somebody on, I think it's Goodreads. I was

00:08:53.000 logging that I had read the book and I was just like, everyone read this book. It's great. And

00:08:56.860 the review undermined somebody who was like, I came here for the serial killer, but I stayed

00:08:59.980 for the Hungarian political discussion. So that's good to know. So we don't need to get into all of

00:09:07.520 that, but just sort of in an overarching way, just kind of like, who is she? We can debunk some,

00:09:12.140 some of the facts about her. And then, you know, at the end, I feel like we can give her

00:09:16.360 a new score on, as I'm sure you would appreciate the Fredegund Memorial

00:09:20.720 Scandalism Scale. Absolutely. So my book essentially starts, you know, 1604 to

00:09:28.460 16, I mean, 1614. So tracing the last 10 years of her life. But just to set the stage,

00:09:36.260 I think the first thing that we need to know is that Hungary has been divided and that

00:09:43.480 there are three parts of Hungary, one which is ruled by the Habsburgs, Royal Hungary.

00:09:49.640 We have a middle part that has been commandeered or conquered by the Ottomans.

00:09:54.160 And then we have a semi-independent Transylvania.

00:09:57.420 The other thing you really need to know is just how important the Bathory family is at

00:10:02.620 this time period.

00:10:03.340 I think a lot of people who are familiar with this story are aware that they're a very prominent noble family, but because of a lot of purposeful erasure by the dynasties that supplanted them, often kind of gets, I think, I guess their true import to this time period is often underrated.

00:10:24.700 And I think what we need to know is that the Bathory family has, you know, at this point in time, she's got a 500-year-old name, castles, lands that span, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles.

00:10:37.100 If you look at sort of maps of what is, you know, controlled by the Bathory family at this time period, it dwarfs most things in, you know, Italy, a lot of the duchies and, you know, and things in the Netherlands.

00:10:49.440 It makes Scotland look like just a little, little country.

00:10:53.060 So they're controlling mass amounts of land, and they're also controlling everything from, you know, they have a prominent Bathory.

00:10:59.820 Her uncle was the king of Poland and Lithuania.

00:11:02.760 She's got cousins and uncles, et cetera, who are the princes of Transylvania.

00:11:07.320 She also has other cousins who are cardinals in Rome.

00:11:11.300 So you have them spanning across, you know, the Reformation at this time period.

00:11:14.980 You have Bathory's who are Catholic, Bathory's who are Protestant and important in both ways.

00:11:20.660 you have them controlling multiple countries and you have them in play for some of like their

00:11:26.260 major dynasty and their major player. Their name is as recognizable in this time period as the

00:11:31.560 Medici's or the Habsburgs. And in fact, you know, in some ways they're rivals to those families. So

00:11:36.280 I think that's really important to know the family that she's coming from and that she's dealing with

00:11:43.580 a country that is divided, but was at one point in time, a very progressive, tolerant country

00:11:52.080 and sees itself in some ways still as that, but has been kind of falling into, into kind of chaos

00:11:59.040 and ruin lately. But it's important to know that she's been raised in this, in a very progressive

00:12:04.520 and tolerant environment, because that's going to be very important later.

00:12:09.000 And you mentioned a few times in the book, the, which I really appreciated every time you kind

00:12:13.280 of like set it at a time and place like here's what was going on in other places I'm like oh

00:12:17.480 okay got it got it because it's sort of like at the same time as like towards the end of

00:12:21.920 the reign of Elizabeth the first it's like James the first like you mentioned the gunpowder plot

00:12:26.860 like that's what's happened and that's just for me in terms of the history that I'm more familiar

00:12:30.600 with versus the history of Hungary you know it's like okay yeah like Catholic versus Protestant

00:12:35.900 like this is an extremely violent time of religious not rivalries but just tension I guess

00:12:42.380 So like, this is their version of that. You're talking about like the Calvinists or like Martin Luther, like this is, these religions are very, now in today's world, there's various tensions that we all know about, but like Catholic versus Protestant is not like an especially violent one anymore, but it was like truly life and death at this point. 0.83

00:13:04.100 And I think too, like we think of Hungary and we might think that's a cool country. It's a place

00:13:08.740 I want to go. But one thing I think too, is that Hungary had been and was still a major player in

00:13:15.840 world politics. And that's something that often gets overshadowed. They're fighting off the Turks

00:13:20.020 and the rest of the world is watching. They are terrified of the Ottoman empire and they see

00:13:26.120 Hungary as the bulwark against them. And if, you know, if Hungary falls and the Ottoman Turks march 0.67

00:13:32.380 to Vienna, there goes the rest of Western Europe. So you also have to keep in mind that throughout 0.84

00:13:36.160 this period, you know, Elizabeth, for example, Queen Elizabeth in England is having her subjects

00:13:41.080 pray for, please let them, you know, succeed in Hungary. All of Europe is watching what's happening

00:13:46.780 in Hungary and they're sending all of the freedom fighters, all kind of the young,

00:13:51.300 this is sort of the Spanish civil war of the time period. So for example, Captain John Smith of

00:13:55.920 Pocahontas being, that's where he gets his, you know, his rank of captain. All of these men are

00:14:00.420 pouring in as mercenaries, some of them as journalists to see what's going to happen in

00:14:06.120 Hungary. So this is kind of a major flashpoint. And then this whole story unfolds at this like

00:14:12.740 really important inflection point in history as well.

00:14:16.740 And I think that context is so important. I mean, just I would think for me and probably for other

00:14:20.840 readers just to be like, okay, the history of Hungary, but like, what actually was happening?

00:14:24.620 And what, how does it relate to, you know, a figure that a lot of people know, like Elizabeth

00:14:28.740 the first or even the fact that the ottoman empire at this point it's suleiman right is the and we've

00:14:34.040 talked about him on the podcast like with harem sultan and his partner and stuff so it's like this

00:14:39.100 is what's happening so it's simultaneous to so many famous world events it's not just this like

00:14:43.600 little weird thing happening in this little obscure area it's like no this is a major place

00:14:48.000 and elizabeth is part of this major family and that's part of why it becomes a huge shock because

00:14:53.600 it's like, as though this happened to, like you said, like a Borgia or a Medici person, like this

00:14:58.900 is, could not be a more famous person. And so, yeah, your book starts kind of her husband dies

00:15:04.800 and that's where things kind of get going because she is then in charge of all these properties.

00:15:12.160 And as we have seen with like Salem witch trials or anything, it's just like, okay,

00:15:17.020 a widow who owns some land is vulnerable in some ways to men who want that land.

00:15:22.580 And she's also doubly vulnerable at this time period. So, you know, 1604 opens, she's in the past six months lost her oldest son and her husband. So it's kind of a double whammy. She still has one son left, but he's much younger. So he's not going to be able, you know, to take over the family properties. And so she's going to have to rule as regent for a much longer period of time.

00:15:46.720 but she does have the advantage when this book starts of she has a very very powerful brother

00:15:51.040 so she's an orphan and her husband was an orphan so there's so much death and destruction in this

00:15:56.420 time period that a lot of families that typically would have sort of that back bench of you know

00:16:01.360 here's my younger brother here's my cousin here's my dad here's my uncle who can step in

00:16:04.740 they don't have that at this time period um unfortunately but she does have a very powerful

00:16:10.860 brother and he is the chief justice of all of Hungary who commands, you know, a lot of, a lot

00:16:17.080 of property. And she still has some influential male cousins and, and nephews. You know, things

00:16:23.140 are looking precarious, but that she might be able to pull it off. And she might be able, if she's,

00:16:28.440 she's kind of wise and just and, and careful to keep the family name and properties together

00:16:35.560 as 1604 starts off, but she also is facing off with a lot of people who are kind of eyeing up

00:16:42.520 her land and her power. And I think in this context, if anyone could have made this work,

00:16:47.920 it would be her. Like she's a very, as you, just from all the evidence he found of her letters and

00:16:52.340 her business dealings, how many people she took to court. She is like a very capable landowner

00:16:59.800 person like she she knows what's happening she's sort of like this mixture of like very knowledgeable 0.62

00:17:06.120 very firm in her decision making but also very kind very compassionate to to her servants and

00:17:13.580 stuff it seems like she's got all the skills to make this work but you know there's there's a lot

00:17:19.040 of gross really annoying men and we're going to get to each of them and I'm going to just rage

00:17:24.040 but there's a lot of she's a very just person I guess is what I'm thinking what I'm trying to say 0.96

00:17:29.120 It's like there's a lot of corrupt people everywhere around her.

00:17:32.460 And it seems she has a lot of faith in the judicial system and a lot of faith in like

00:17:37.460 what is the right thing to do.

00:17:39.680 And that when you're surrounded by like absolute corruption, that doesn't, in her case, did

00:17:44.980 not work out really well.

00:17:46.080 Anyway, I'm just trying to say she seemed like a good business lady for the time. 0.63

00:17:50.860 Yeah.

00:17:51.240 And I think you bring up some great points. 1.00

00:17:52.660 She's also well-versed in governing. 0.56

00:17:55.400 And there's a lot of that. 0.99

00:17:56.600 And the other thing to keep in mind is she's going to be a woman governing properties while there's an active invasion going on. 1.00

00:18:02.480 So she's not just going to be a business leader, but she's also needs to have the support of her people in terms of will she defend us? 0.94

00:18:10.160 Like, can we trust her in this time of war?

00:18:13.100 And she's well suited to this.

00:18:14.260 Like you mentioned taking people to court, but I think this will be important later to mention. 0.97

00:18:17.760 She's from a family of lawyers and judges.

00:18:19.260 And she's also from a family where the men are very tolerant.

00:18:23.540 and the women have done extraordinary things her mother was this powerhouse and she has you know

00:18:30.280 aunts as well who have just just are you know flout convention and are used to being taken 0.51

00:18:36.100 seriously are used to going to court and being the equal of a man and saying hey this isn't fair

00:18:41.220 so in some ways she might suffer from that expectation i think if you're raised in like a

00:18:46.840 you know kind of corrupt horrific environment you find ways to adapt early but if you're raised

00:18:52.500 where you're like things are just and we have endless progress and things are going to get

00:18:57.400 better and better and I'm going to be considered capable and a man's equal, it's sometimes more

00:19:04.080 difficult when things change and all of a sudden you're dealing, you're thinking you're dealing

00:19:09.220 in one world, right, with one skill set and you're not. You're dealing kind of with a game and you

00:19:15.420 don't necessarily have the skills or you're not prepared for the level of the deception or the

00:19:20.860 corruption that you're going to face so this one i would like to introduce to the listeners

00:19:25.000 i'm the the first um villain who i just who is the pastor um who only speaks latin i forget his name 0.58

00:19:35.640 oh panakenis oh okay tell tell everybody about him he super sucks this guy yeah and i mean there's 0.60

00:19:44.140 a few pastors i don't know if we want to start with like the very first one megary or we can 0.81

00:19:50.300 jumped upon a kennis but either one just to establish sort of like the whole the pastor

00:19:54.420 elizabeth bathory relationship the pastor elizabeth bathory relationship when her husband dies

00:19:59.400 you know she's got this pastor right who's been her husband's like personal chaplain throughout

00:20:05.440 the war he her husband's been off you know fighting for quite some time and this guy has

00:20:09.700 kind of completely lost it like he is just so traumatized by what he's seen and he's written

00:20:14.160 about this that he's had to you know literally deal with rivers of blood or baptize all of these

00:20:19.520 dying men and these are boys that he you know baptized or raised or a lot of these are people

00:20:25.160 he he knows and he is so freaked out and he also you know believes that God is just and he's a good

00:20:31.740 man and you know there's this question of like when bad things happen to good people what do

00:20:35.660 you do you have to find someone to blame so it's like if God if they're God's chosen people and

00:20:40.480 he's a good person and these are all good people like why is God letting them all be slaughtered

00:20:45.520 over and over and he can't, he can't figure it out. So, you know, clearly it's because evil has

00:20:51.240 taken hold in the land. He's the one who's like, everybody has to stop swearing. Yeah, this is,

00:20:56.940 this is the swearing guy, right? So he's like, everyone swears too much. That's the problem.

00:21:00.940 Everyone stops swearing. Right? Like he's got to find something, latch onto something that this

00:21:05.500 is God's punishment. God's punishing us. And if we can just figure out the wrong thing we're doing

00:21:10.800 or the bad person who's doing the thing and get rid of them, everything's going to be fine.

00:21:15.920 Everything's going to be fine.

00:21:16.600 It's not that we're losing this war because of, you know, we have bad generals or we're

00:21:21.440 not fighting our battles, right?

00:21:22.460 It's because somebody's swearing or somebody's eating meat on a fast day or somebody's thinking

00:21:28.460 impure thoughts.

00:21:29.340 So there's this idea now that's taken hold, right?

00:21:32.860 When Elizabeth Bathory comes to power, that we have to watch everyone and we have to survey

00:21:38.140 not just what they do, but also what they might be thinking or reading. And so we need to really

00:21:44.040 be keeping close tabs on everyone and everything they might be doing.

00:21:48.720 At this point, and you described this in the book too, but the little ice age, so just kind of like

00:21:52.860 the coldest possible weather, just for like climate-based reasons, this has just happened,

00:21:59.080 but this is meaning that people are, I forget you had some examples, but you know, like crops are

00:22:03.480 you're saying like birds are just freezing and falling out of trees like it's just it's devastating

00:22:08.180 so you can see like there's this war and he's seeing you know rivers of blood all these people

00:22:11.860 dying the crops are bad everybody's starving like life is horrible so i can understand why somebody

00:22:17.300 is just trying to feel some measure of control to be like how can we fix this how can we change this

00:22:22.500 so just i did a whole series last year about the french revolution and that also like there's a

00:22:27.960 weather component to that like it was so cold the weather was so bad like people just want to blame

00:22:32.060 somebody when everything is going wrong but and this guy is just like okay what we need to do is

00:22:38.140 stop swearing like make sure you're not eating and just like yeah it's a real so this paranoia

00:22:43.820 of just like everybody is looking for somebody to blame which is similar to like again i'll just

00:22:47.560 bring up the salem witch trials because there are similarities of just everybody watching your

00:22:52.060 neighbors like really suspiciously wanting to find a culprit absolutely and you know i have this like

00:22:58.920 what makes things awful when things become really awful there seems to always be three things going

00:23:03.860 on there's always epidemic pandemic there's like mysterious illness people dying there's always

00:23:09.260 climate change you know where you can't count on your next meal crops are failing there's like this

00:23:13.720 real panic like all the routines are you know have been disrupted and there's always sort of you know

00:23:19.920 like rulers that are more concerned with private good like accumulating their own wealth or they're

00:23:24.320 you know kind of going off the rocker than with sort of public good or like let's let's get together

00:23:28.600 rally the people and solve this right so people like you're saying they're terrified they're

00:23:33.300 fragmented they don't have any agency they don't know where to turn and so they turn on each other

00:23:37.900 we see this you know it's it's over and over again and you mentioned the the plague and there

00:23:43.040 are various um diseases that rip through because this is also like when we're talking about like

00:23:48.300 a time period again that i'm more familiar with or a place which is like elizabeth in england it's

00:23:52.700 just like oh yeah the plague like you hear about that happening all the time and you know she has

00:23:56.460 to go hide in some castle somewhere. And that's happening here as well. Like people,

00:24:00.000 typhus, like all kinds of things are just like, so it's, it's a devastating, horrible time to be

00:24:04.720 living. And Elizabeth is there living in this time, doing the best she can as this lady in

00:24:10.140 charge. So that's, was that McGarry? That's the, yeah, that's like the pastor, right? And, and

00:24:15.340 they're kind of, they have a relationship. So Elizabeth is able to smooth this over, but this

00:24:19.920 is where some of the very first accusations come from. And, you know, that a lot of people say,

00:24:25.320 oh, look, she was doing this for years and years and years and years, that there are these

00:24:29.820 allegations because there are some clashes that Elizabeth has with her pastors who are at this

00:24:37.520 point surveilling everyone. And there's these letters that have survived. It's an exchange

00:24:42.880 between McGarry and some of his underlings. And they are concerned about how they can punish a

00:24:47.640 woman who works for Elizabeth Bathory. And the point of their letter is that they want to,

00:24:54.420 They're going to release these like new guidelines on how they're going to punish everybody. 1.00

00:24:58.240 But this woman's going to want to come to church before they've released these new guidelines. 1.00

00:25:01.860 And they don't want her to come to church because they won't have punished her. 1.00

00:25:05.900 So they're trying to figure out what sort of penance she should do.

00:25:09.140 And they all decide like this woman can't come and take communion for like, I think it's three months.

00:25:14.860 And when they're talking about her, they call her that words that are the carnifex servant, but that translate to like that butcher woman, right?

00:25:22.080 And people have translated that because of the Latin word into executioner, torturer, all of these terms.

00:25:29.780 But that's like the first inkling that a lot of people have or that people have pointed to to say, oh, there's something amiss at Elizabeth's court.

00:25:37.340 She's harboring a woman who is a butcher, a torturer, an executioner.

00:25:43.300 And these priests and these pastors are concerned about it.

00:25:47.540 But the thing I think we also have to keep in mind is these are people who are trying to take away an entire year's salary for someone cursing, right?

00:25:56.320 I mean, they are trying to level these penalties that are just absolutely devastating.

00:26:01.320 I mean, this is like, if you read some of these penalties, you're like, that's insane, right?

00:26:06.060 Like, you curse on the wrong day, you say the wrong thing, and you could lose everything.

00:26:11.160 And all they want to do to this woman is make sure she can't come to communion for three months.

00:26:15.460 you go is is that evidence of murder or torture or is there something else going on here because

00:26:21.460 that's a really relatively light punishment for guys who are at this point in time they have been

00:26:25.640 breaking into people's closets and their bookcases to see like what they're wearing what they're

00:26:30.760 reading i mean the level of surveillance is ridiculous and so the fact that all they want

00:26:38.100 to do with this woman is say just don't don't take communion for three months is it torture

00:26:43.000 Is it murder?

00:26:44.000 What, you know, what the question is, what is this letter?

00:26:46.800 What is this exchange really about?

00:26:48.780 Well, and this is where I feel like you and your, I'm just picturing your team of like

00:26:53.680 people who are, who read these handwritten letters and know what words mean.

00:26:57.400 So you've got a couple of different theories.

00:26:58.820 And one of them is about, was she eating meat on the wrong day?

00:27:03.440 Can you explain about that?

00:27:05.160 Sure.

00:27:05.420 So there is in this area where Elizabeth Bathory is governing and it's Sharvar, which a lot,

00:27:11.700 You know, she is associated a lot with the castle where she will be imprisoned and die.

00:27:16.560 But this is like Sharvar, which is in Hungary, very close kind of to the border with Austria and with Slovakia right now.

00:27:27.160 But from this giant seat here, there's always been in this area this like overreaction to people eating meat, dealing with the Reformation.

00:27:34.300 There's a lot of debate on when they have reformed the church with the Protestants and the Catholics.

00:27:38.640 Should we stick with what the Catholics do with not eating meat?

00:27:41.700 Some people are like, yes, we should.

00:27:43.620 And then there are these other more radical interpretations that are like, no, we're going

00:27:48.740 to redo everything.

00:27:50.020 Like, we don't need any of these rules.

00:27:51.660 We're our own people, you know, and kind of really pushing for getting rid of everything.

00:27:56.160 So there are people who are eating meat on Fridays on purpose to say down with the Catholic

00:28:02.260 church and I'm part of this new religion.

00:28:05.420 And there are people who are still following the old, you know, fasting regulations, whether

00:28:10.860 they are Lutheran or Catholic. And this is a huge debate. And the reason it's, I guess,

00:28:15.940 important is in this area of Shavar, people have been freaking out about this for a long time. So

00:28:19.760 for example, there was a monk who ate meat and they call him Paulus the Instigator, which I think 1.00

00:28:25.000 is a great name, right? And they are like, you are a bloodthirsty butcher. They use the same word 0.84

00:28:30.200 for this monk and have this huge, you know, there's this huge deal over because he ate meat

00:28:36.260 and he was eating it to, you know, make a point.

00:28:39.280 And they've also had these other situations

00:28:40.820 where people who eat meat are called werewolves or murderers.

00:28:44.820 So there's a lot of freaking out about eating meat.

00:28:47.640 And this is the same word that's been used

00:28:50.360 in some of those contexts.

00:28:51.420 So that's one interpretation is that Elizabeth Bathory,

00:28:55.340 who is known in terms of her like religious alliances,

00:28:59.040 she's known to be very tolerant. 0.99

00:29:01.980 And what she's trying to pursue on her estates

00:29:05.300 is she says, we're going to have a policy of religious tolerance. Like, I'm not going to 0.86

00:29:09.580 interfere with your churches, but you can't interfere with other people's churches. And

00:29:12.660 she wants to sort of keep this policy of having Catholics and Lutherans and Calvinists all able

00:29:19.620 to practice their religion freely without too much interference. So you could see how somebody

00:29:25.820 who's very tolerant comes against a bunch of religious extremists that want every single sin

00:29:31.920 monitored and surveyed and punished are very upset that she's allowing people who are defying

00:29:38.600 you know the fasting regulations and are eating meat when they're not supposed to be during lent

00:29:43.920 and she's allowing that and that's what they are really upset about and then another theory that

00:29:50.400 you propose in your book um and whether this is what this person was getting in trouble for or

00:29:55.660 not this was something that was happening at elizabeth's house which is having these women

00:29:59.580 healers on hand. Absolutely. Yeah. And I love this whole part of your book. I was just like,

00:30:05.780 oh my gosh, because later on, not spoilers, because we're going to explain this later, but

00:30:10.760 some of the things that people alleged Elizabeth Bathory did to young girls, it's like, well,

00:30:15.000 these line up with what medical treatments might be. And if you saw medical treatment without

00:30:18.660 understanding it, you might assume that's torture. But can you explain about the whole like the old

00:30:22.640 woman role? Yeah. So at this time period, everyone, not just Elizabeth Bathory, but all the nobles

00:30:29.220 at their court, you kind of have three categories of healers. You have like the doctor who's more

00:30:33.940 like the philosopher who's going to talk about your humors and say, you know, this is what I've

00:30:37.880 decided is out of balance and you should really be bled or you have too much bile, but he doesn't

00:30:43.460 do too much. You know, he doesn't actually get his hands dirty. He's more the guy coming in and

00:30:47.480 giving pronouncements. You have the barber surgeons who are these guys that are coming

00:30:52.260 in with their leeches or they're actually like, you know, doing bloodletting, but they're also

00:30:56.680 doing sort of what we consider, you know, basic surgery, like stitches, removing boils, you know,

00:31:02.740 those sorts of things. And then you have old women. And they also call them sometimes women 1.00

00:31:08.480 scientists, it translates as, which I think is a lovely term. And these are generally what we

00:31:13.240 might think of as kind of your, I don't know, pediatrician slash general practitioner today,

00:31:21.160 family doctor, because it's assumed that they have a lot of practical experience.

00:31:25.360 they have a lot of knowledge of like herbs and in a lot of cases doctors and the barber surgeons

00:31:32.280 the male doctors and male barber surgeons will defer to them and and there's a lot of instances

00:31:36.760 of them doing a really good job and they're you know able to particularly like they do a lot with

00:31:41.880 you know curing children and and children's ailments but also you know a lot of other 0.99

00:31:47.120 sort of more practical things and a lot of the things that these old women are doing are things 1.00

00:31:50.880 we still do today you know um things like using willow bark which is where we get aspirin from 1.00

00:31:55.020 for when people have headaches, you know, making poultices out of that, or certain creams, you

00:32:00.320 know, to soothe eczema or skin rashes, or things to sell your stomach when you have nausea. So

00:32:05.780 they're making their tinctures and their, you know, their lotions and all of these things.

00:32:11.280 And they're also sort of providing kind of basic health care. And every court has an old woman, 0.99

00:32:16.580 everybody who can, you know, pretty much has one, some have more than one. And so Elizabeth Bathory 0.54

00:32:22.360 also has, you know, old women at her court. And this isn't, this isn't unusual. And in fact, 1.00

00:32:28.200 she's had to scale back. An important thing too, to know is that her mother-in-law had a whole

00:32:33.840 hospital on the estate. And in the war years, that's been scaled back. But there's this like

00:32:37.340 long tradition of healing on the estates and this idea that noble women have to take care of the 1.00

00:32:42.520 poor and less fortunate on their estate. So this isn't healthcare just for them and their family 0.99

00:32:47.020 members, but also for anyone, you know, a serf or a free person in one of the neighboring towns

00:32:51.920 that might have an injury that they need to be able to treat.

00:32:56.500 And so the old woman who she has, 1.00

00:33:00.380 who I think dies before all of the kind of scandal starts.

00:33:03.180 So a woman who I remember mentioning or reading about

00:33:06.140 in my original episode, Anna Darvulia,

00:33:08.820 who's kind of this shadowy figure.

00:33:10.240 It's like, where did she come from and where did she go?

00:33:11.820 It's like, well, she came there from away, right?

00:33:14.380 So there's some suspicion because she was German, I think,

00:33:17.420 or not from there.

00:33:19.580 She could have been Transylvania, but she's not a local. 1.00

00:33:21.920 Right. And she left because she clearly died, because then somebody else took over that job.

00:33:27.220 I think just in some of the research I did, you know, six years ago, it was like, where did she go? It was very mysterious. It's like, well, she died. Like it was, she was a medical person at a time of plague, like she died.

00:33:39.340 But also, so there's a hospital on her, or hospital sort of, health care is being provided

00:33:44.820 on her properties, but also there's like a girl's school as well. 0.99

00:33:48.660 So you can imagine that these, the old lady, like you mentioned, sort of like a pediatrician 0.98

00:33:52.780 type thing, like if the girls fall ill, like that's what would be who would be tending

00:33:56.080 to them as well.

00:33:57.600 Absolutely.

00:33:58.440 And there was, you know, a time when they, a few generations ago, they actually were

00:34:02.420 able to keep a doctor at court.

00:34:03.780 But at this point in time, there's also a doctor shortage, which is important to know.

00:34:06.780 so this is some of this is just by necessity. There are no doctors in the documents of the

00:34:11.560 time period. There are people fighting over, like, can we get the doctor? Well, maybe these

00:34:15.240 two towns can split the doctor. And she is calling in doctors, you know, from time to time and also

00:34:20.440 working with male barber surgeons. But they're just there aren't a lot of them. So the old women 0.67

00:34:24.840 are having to do more and more that they might not ordinarily have to do just out of necessity. 0.85

00:34:29.980 It's kind of like, you know, all the urgent cares are overflowing, let's say. And you know what I

00:34:34.960 mean you get somebody gets a splinter it's like well you know in a time when you can walk right

00:34:39.600 in you might just let them deal with it now we're all like we've got our you know tweezers

00:34:43.800 and our headlamp on and we're going to do it ourselves because we can't wait you know a week

00:34:48.720 for an appointment so a lot of that's what's happening as well it's just you know they're

00:34:53.640 having to make adjustments out of out of necessity and so this is another theory of that carnifax 1.00

00:34:59.360 thing about like this butcher woman um how should we punish her so it could also be somebody is maybe

00:35:06.340 eating meat but maybe when they say the butcher woman they could mean this old woman they could

00:35:10.200 mean this yeah that they call like they there are there's this history as well of what they consider

00:35:16.360 aggressive there's also these two um you know two lines of thought about health care and we even see

00:35:22.040 them today there's like the kind of natural like anti-vax like just don't do anything and pray to

00:35:26.900 God and, you know, maybe it'll be okay. And then there's people like, no, we're gonna, we're gonna

00:35:31.600 do something about it. And there's a division on how do you, how do you deal with that? And so

00:35:36.560 there's, you know, one faction that's calling the other, you guys are butchers, you know, you're

00:35:40.680 stitching people, you're cutting people, you might be cauterizing things instead of just praying or

00:35:46.480 using these sort of more natural, natural methods. So there is also this long history of some

00:35:53.440 healthcare providers, calling other healthcare providers, butchers, that person's a butcher,

00:35:57.540 they're too aggressive. And so when they call her carnifacts, they could also be, that could just be

00:36:01.780 her profession. Like she's a butcher woman. She's one of those healthcare providers that, you know, 0.99

00:36:07.340 will cut you up, you know, will stitch you up. And that's a description, not even like it's, 0.95

00:36:12.620 you know, pejorative, but it's being used sort of widely at the time period as well.

00:36:17.220 There's, I was just looking up because there's a part of your book that I was just like, oh my gosh,

00:36:21.540 I like took a picture of this passage.

00:36:23.140 I'm like, this feels like today so hard.

00:36:25.460 I'm just going to summarize.

00:36:27.760 But basically you said, so this is the, so Heartline Fundamentalists were saying it was

00:36:34.000 permitted to treat illness with fresh air, herbal remedies, and special foods.

00:36:37.760 But if those did not offer relief, failure of faith was the reason.

00:36:41.180 More invasive medical procedures were not just unnecessary.

00:36:43.980 They directly defied God.

00:36:46.220 So it's just like RFK Jr.

00:36:48.760 What are you doing in this book?

00:36:49.900 Like, and we have, you know, I mean, you could see like old women who, um, also in this time 0.79

00:36:56.460 period, if you know, everybody who it's all hands on deck. 0.85

00:36:59.700 So anyone who's a barber surgeon who normally would be stitching people up is off on the

00:37:03.780 front or they're in these medical hospitals. 1.00

00:37:05.360 So if you need your kid, you know, your kid falls and needs stitches, old women who might 1.00

00:37:09.180 have been like, eh, but they're taking over more and more of that. 1.00

00:37:11.840 So there's like a good, a good reason for people to be, be calling them that and to

00:37:16.860 also be, uh, expecting them to fill that role.

00:37:20.800 So this is kind of like all setting the scene for kind of what's actually happening on Elizabeth's property is for when people start accusing her of various things.

00:37:28.240 So we talked about the one pastor and then there's this other pastor.

00:37:32.440 So I forget his name, but I just hated him so much.

00:37:34.480 The guy who never learned how to speak Hungarian and he just got more and he kept applying for promotions and not getting them.

00:37:40.940 And he just got more and more angry.

00:37:42.920 And it's like, sir, learn Hungarian, like just maybe happier.

00:37:48.700 Panakenis is this, you know, you can, in his letters and everything about him, he's just

00:37:53.260 this like kind of frustrated, angry guy, but also completely incapable of self-reflection

00:37:58.120 and being like, how, how might I have something to do with this situation?

00:38:01.480 It's like, I showed up and I read my poems at this, you know, at this funeral and nobody

00:38:06.240 liked them.

00:38:07.300 So the devil made them not like my poetry or like when, you know, he is called out by

00:38:12.840 other parishioners or people who are like, that's not, you know, I don't like what you're

00:38:16.620 preaching or that's wrong. Or how can you dare say that? He thinks not like, well, I misspoke or,

00:38:22.280 you know, should I, should I change my sermons? But he goes, they've been possessed by the devil.

00:38:26.860 So he definitely has this persecution complex from the get-go and fails to connect it to any

00:38:32.020 of his own kind of, you know, foibles or faults. You know, he is obviously meant for great things.

00:38:40.440 And the fact that these have not materialized mean that he's the center of a great conspiracy

00:38:45.640 headed up by the devil it's very very much um a similar vibe to people who are just like

00:38:52.260 i didn't get this job and it's because i'm a white man like it's like your person like you're against 0.68

00:38:57.660 me because i'm white it's like no it's because you're not qualified and also annoying like this

00:39:02.460 is but it's it's the same sort of persecution complex but he takes it in this religious

00:39:07.000 direction of just so like the other pastor who is just kind of like why are all these people dying

00:39:12.440 Why is it really cold?

00:39:13.740 It's like, oh, it must be someone like we need to just like be on our best behavior.

00:39:17.400 And this guy is like, why am I not advancing in the world?

00:39:19.540 Well, it must be because there's a wide ranging satanic conspiracy against me.

00:39:24.200 So they're just kind of and these are the faith leaders of the area.

00:39:28.280 So he he and Elizabeth do not get along.

00:39:30.960 No, I don't think at first she even knows he exists.

00:39:33.980 And that's another thing that that really, you know, for a man who is like, how do you

00:39:38.080 not how are you not noticing me? 0.95

00:39:39.660 you know he's trying to mingle with the hungarian elite and he's really sort of a 0.96

00:39:43.240 comes from very like low origins and he's not terribly well educated whereas a lot of these

00:39:48.920 other you know pastors have moved up in the world they might not they might have come from humble

00:39:52.420 origins but they've gone away you know to to uh study abroad and come back so they're you know

00:39:58.920 clever men and there's he's he's not you know he's he's a local guy he's got a lot of resentment

00:40:04.200 and he wants to advance in the world and there's this powerful woman who's basically like

00:40:10.720 ignoring him and he's convinced that you know she is somehow part and parcel

00:40:18.780 of the devil's you know plot against him does everything kind of kick start like we've got

00:40:26.860 this tinderbox of like something bad is going to happen and we set up most of the people we

00:40:31.640 haven't talked about Thurzo yet, but does it not happen? Because this guy, whose name I keep

00:40:36.260 forgetting and whatever, this guy I hate, he writes a letter to Thurzo accusing Elizabeth Bathory.

00:40:42.840 Is that what kind of started it? He will do that later on, but he's definitely been giving sermons

00:40:47.580 about her and spreading rumors about her. So later when we get into the testimony, it's like people

00:40:51.560 like, well, I keep hearing these things. And then when you trace it back and trace it back and you

00:40:55.240 go, you know, you really look at each testimony and go, who said what? The only person who's

00:41:00.440 saying this is him. And he's, you know, going, oh, I'm hearing from a lot of people. He's doing

00:41:05.500 that. Some are saying, you know, she's a serial killer. And everybody though, when you go, well,

00:41:11.340 who are you hearing it from? It's like, it's Pana Kenes. It's the pastor at, you know, at this 0.92

00:41:16.780 holiday estate that she has. So he's, he's, and he's not just saying like, you know, she doesn't

00:41:23.320 worship the way we do, or, you know, she's probably not the most religious or observant person, but,

00:41:28.680 you know, he's saying she, right from the get-go, she's a serial killer and he's giving these like

00:41:33.560 inflated numbers, you know, like hundreds. So it's this idea too, where a lot of these hysterical

00:41:39.280 people have been told over and over that these are your enemies. Your enemies are terrible people

00:41:45.840 and they're doing horrible things. They're eating babies. I mean, he believes that everyone who's 0.98

00:41:50.820 one of his, you know, religious opponents, that they're indulging in cannibalism and all sorts

00:41:55.440 of witchcraft and you know they're trying to kill the king and you know him as well um but also that 0.88

00:42:03.480 they're you know murdering children because that's what you do you know they're they're so his idea

00:42:07.980 is he's she's murdering people and she's murdering hundreds of people and he's just starts saying

00:42:12.640 this and starts preaching this you know pretty early i want to mention as well because this like

00:42:17.900 you do say this in the book and you talk about this at more length but the the whole like and

00:42:23.100 they're murdering and eating babies it's like that's something that i've come across in so many 0.72

00:42:28.080 different like ancient rome to whatever it's just like this is how a group shows that like their

00:42:33.100 enemies are just like true monsters and it's like you see that still today groups are being like

00:42:37.700 did you see the footage they were eating babies it's like that like people just draw upon that

00:42:42.100 because you get a visceral reaction where it's just like babies they're eating babies just so

00:42:47.160 i'm just like okay as soon as he was just like and they're eating babies i'm like as soon as any

00:42:50.960 group accuses another group of that it's just like okay this is not true like this is just

00:42:56.020 what you say but he's accusing her and all of his enemies of this sort of stuff

00:43:00.260 and you're right that whole thing i'm just like well some people say that this is this this this

00:43:05.880 it's like you're the first person to say that like but yeah but i've heard i have heard

00:43:12.920 so he's kind of spreading the rumors and so like we need to talk about uh thurzo as well because

00:43:19.460 he becomes the main, the main guy in terms of like Elizabeth facing off on all this stuff.

00:43:27.520 And he's a ambitious, um, power hungry type guy who hates the Bathory's, right?

00:43:37.000 Yeah. I mean, I think when it starts off, um, he actually admires Elizabeth very much. Um,

00:43:43.200 and one thing to keep in mind is he's kind of new money. She's old money and he's trying to break

00:43:47.740 in to the aristocracy. He's got a ton of money, but what he doesn't have are these sort of, you

00:43:52.640 know, this cachet, this, these connections. And there's a point where he's telling his wife to

00:43:57.700 like chase her down. And he's like, she's on the road, go follow her, show up where she is,

00:44:02.380 invite her to dinner. He's trying to get the bath, you know, like Elizabeth Bathory, get her over to

00:44:06.900 her house, hang out with her. And they are for all intents and purposes, you know, friendly at this

00:44:12.020 time period, they're going to the weddings of one another's children. They're showing up the same

00:44:16.620 events, he's happy when she invites him to like her daughter's engagement party. I mean, he thinks

00:44:22.220 he's arrived. So there is this element of envy, but it's a man who has, you know, decided he wants

00:44:29.800 to rise and he's determined to do whatever he needs to do. The other thing that's important

00:44:36.000 to note is that Terzo also has a son. Elizabeth has one son. She has two daughters and a son,

00:44:43.480 you know, that she's grooming to take over, right? And he has a son of the exact same age.

00:44:49.720 So they're going to be competitors at court, right? And if you have this old family with

00:44:54.960 all of these honors and connections, he's going to probably be taking the roles that

00:44:59.440 Terzo also wants for his son. So part of this is this idea that, you know, just of

00:45:03.940 noble families jockeying for position at court, like, you know, garden variety, court intrigue.

00:45:10.440 So a lot of this is just sort of initially kind of starts off as maybe some jealousy or kind of keeping a close eye on one another.

00:45:19.960 But there's a point at which, especially early on, where Terzo would be, you know, very, very happy to have been invited over, you know, to hang out with Elizabeth Bathory.

00:45:31.060 But he's very, very ambitious and he kind of sees opportunities along the way and he takes them.

00:45:38.420 And he's not, it's not just Elizabeth Bathory.

00:45:40.260 That's the other thing I think is important to note

00:45:42.240 is that he has sold out and turned on

00:45:45.340 a lot of other nobles

00:45:46.660 before we get to his interactions with her.

00:45:51.000 If the emperor, the Habsburg emperor,

00:45:53.000 who is seen as kind of, you know,

00:45:54.700 this like foreign overlord,

00:45:56.000 they're not really, really happy with him, 0.99

00:45:57.680 says, I need somebody to go in

00:45:59.940 and get this guy.

00:46:01.380 And a lot of other people are like,

00:46:02.480 nope, not doing that

00:46:03.180 because I will be ostracized.

00:46:04.580 I'm not doing that.

00:46:05.480 And Terzo's like, I'll do it.

00:46:07.120 I'll do it.

00:46:07.640 And that's how he's rising in court is by doing a lot of things that other people won't do.

00:46:12.800 They don't want to turn in their friends or their, you know, a longtime kind of associate.

00:46:17.540 And Terzo doesn't have this complicated web of, you know, loyalties.

00:46:22.980 And he seems to have a very flexible morality.

00:46:26.080 You know, he's very Machiavellian.

00:46:27.380 He thinks very highly of himself, but he definitely is able to justify to himself what he wants to do.

00:46:34.480 Again, not at all like any current politicians in the world.

00:46:37.640 No parallels at all. None.

00:46:39.940 Not at all.

00:46:41.480 And now for a quick advertising break.

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00:50:12.520 So how does it come to be that he comes to Elizabeth's house

00:50:18.040 to accuse her of being a serial killer?

00:50:23.440 Okay, I'm trying to compress this,

00:50:26.120 but one thing that's important to know

00:50:27.300 is that Elizabeth's nephew at this time,

00:50:29.680 where we talked about how powerful the Bathory's are,

00:50:32.100 is the, has become the Prince of Transylvania.

00:50:36.000 This is Gabriel.

00:50:37.540 Gabriel Bathory.

00:50:38.960 And I don't know what this says about me,

00:50:41.040 but I'm always really excited

00:50:42.280 when there's a really hot person in a story.

00:50:45.220 And everyone talking about Gabriel is just like,

00:50:47.240 he's this prince and he's so handsome.

00:50:49.640 He's so hot.

00:50:51.200 Everyone, it's like distractingly hot.

00:50:54.200 So I was just like, he's now my favorite character.

00:50:56.260 I like Gabriel, Prince of Transylvania.

00:50:58.720 it. It's just interesting to me because people get mad at him. They say like, oh, he must be

00:51:03.600 seducing everyone's wives. It's like, just because he's hot doesn't mean he's seducing everyone's

00:51:06.940 wives. Like calm down everyone. And everyone thinks he's hot. What is so funny too, it's like

00:51:10.920 the men think he's hot. Like the warriors are like, this guy's so strong. He's so athletic.

00:51:15.040 Like they're like, wow, he can do all these really cool athletic things. Like, so even these old,

00:51:21.640 like battle hardened, you know, kind of rough and tumble soldiers are enamored with them. And people

00:51:27.580 are like he is like this he definitely is very charismatic and good looking and this is you know

00:51:33.360 this is a problem naturally i mean like we're gonna i won't tell you the context but just like

00:51:36.980 even after he dies and people see his body after a few months they're like it hasn't decomposed at

00:51:41.480 all he's still just as hot even as a core he is so hot it's uh it's so funny and um you know this

00:51:50.360 is i guess this is you could see why he's such a threat that the batteries are controlling if we

00:51:56.120 you remember back to that three part of Hungary and really two parts. So the Habsburgs have one 0.99

00:52:01.680 part and the Bathurst have the other part essentially. And the goal is always to reunite

00:52:06.200 these parts, right? And the dream has been that one day right now, the foreign overlords,

00:52:12.360 the Habsburgs are ruling half of Hungary, but there's always been this dream that there will

00:52:15.800 be a homegrown Hungarian prince who's going to like, you reunite everybody. And all of a sudden

00:52:22.280 You have this young, hot, charismatic, athletic, great warrior prince, and people are saying, hmm, maybe this should be the guy that reunites us.

00:52:32.320 And there is this idea that the Bathory family, which has, you know, kind of ruled before, might be the ones to sort of pull this off and reunite, you know, reunite Hungary.

00:52:44.360 And Terzo, who's working for the Habsburgs, you know, he's like the Habsburgs number one guy in Hungary, is nervous, right?

00:52:53.700 I mean, the Bathory's are now actively threatening his position, his title, all of this. 0.97

00:52:59.980 So this is where we're at.

00:53:01.200 We're at a Habsburg, Terzo versus Gabriel Bathory impasse.

00:53:07.040 And one thing Gabriel Bathory does not have, there's not a lot of Bathory men still surviving,

00:53:11.560 but he's got all of these very smart, wealthy, influential female relatives who are like,

00:53:18.360 we will help you. And Elizabeth among them, you know, we have the resources, we have the 0.94

00:53:23.100 connections. And so we have this young prince who's relying a lot on his female relatives.

00:53:29.340 And the problem becomes, what can you do to get rid of political women? Because you can't deal 1.00

00:53:37.340 with them the same way that you can deal with a male rival. You can't just say, come out and fight

00:53:41.680 me in a battle, right? So what are you going, what are you going to do? And the Habsburgs have this,

00:53:48.120 this, and Terzo has this kind of quandary of what am I going to do? How am I going to erode support

00:53:54.080 for this young, hot, handsome, you know, Bathory Prince and all of the women who are supporting him?

00:54:00.940 And the thing is, and again, you talk about this in the book and what happens to some of the other 0.98

00:54:04.940 female relatives it's like one angle could be like she's a great whore like like let's just 1.00

00:54:10.440 claim that her children are illegitimate or whatever she's sleeping with all the men it's 1.00

00:54:13.660 like you could do that but with Elizabeth it's like she her reputation is so well known and 0.98

00:54:17.860 she's so known for like her religiousness and just being morally upstanding it's like that would

00:54:21.600 never work so then it's like well what if we say she's a serial killer which is a wild pivot but

00:54:27.120 that's and you know what it seems like a wild pivot but another important bit of context which

00:54:34.000 I found fascinating is, is like right before her neighbor is also accused of being a serial killer,

00:54:38.600 a man. But this is like, in order to be able to get somebody out of politics and seize their land,

00:54:44.820 like they can't just commit a normal crime. Okay. So you can't just commit normal murder

00:54:49.340 because the aristocracy has certain rights or you can't just commit normal theft. So it has to be

00:54:54.660 extra. And so a lot of people at this time, what the Habsburgs are doing to get rid of their 1.00

00:55:00.640 political rivals and, you know, people who might rise up against them or give support to their

00:55:05.180 opponents, is they're accusing them of these really crazy crimes that enable them to seize

00:55:11.100 their land. And this has become like an ongoing pattern. There's been a whole rebellion about this.

00:55:16.140 So it's important to know that it's not just Elizabeth, you know, if we take this out of

00:55:19.720 context, that's accused of this, but there's these, you know, people that are accused of,

00:55:23.720 you know, doing like these very bizarre things, they're mutilating bodies, but to know that right

00:55:29.520 before elizabeth is accused her one of her neighbors a neighboring lord is also accused

00:55:34.320 of being a serial poisoner like oh he's poisoning everybody and goes to trial for this so this uh

00:55:40.600 this pivot to serial killer isn't as odd as it may seem given that they've already tried it

00:55:46.280 against it's kind of like a classic shakedown yes like we want your property you're like against

00:55:52.120 the habsburgs like what you're also a serial killer like all of the habsburgs enemies guess

00:55:57.420 yeah okay but yeah you're right because also in this time where it's just like people are dying

00:56:01.280 all the time like it's if you're like you killed one person like that's not shocking it has to be

00:56:05.540 like you killed dozens or hundreds of people in like weird ways like you have to go really over

00:56:11.480 the top to make it be appalling i guess and also just the way the law works um you know not to not

00:56:18.860 to get to like the minutia of it but generally speaking aristocrats are supposed to settle stuff

00:56:22.800 amongst themselves with lawsuits. So, you know, if I kill, you know, your son, then you're going 0.88

00:56:29.240 to sue me and I'm going to have to give you a ton of money and we're going to, we're going to reach 0.80

00:56:32.760 some sort of settlement and nobody else gets involved. So it has to be this sort of, like

00:56:37.400 you're saying, so many people, like such a huge deal that that enables the Habsburgs to get 0.99

00:56:42.460 involved and then commandeer their property. And so Thurzo, he comes up with, he's like, okay, 0.99

00:56:50.020 we're going to do the classic calling her a serial killer plan. And later on in the book,

00:56:54.080 you explain, but also in history, like eventually the Roman emperor, Holy Roman emperor is like,

00:56:59.340 what are you doing? Because Therese was like, the emperor told me to do this. I'm doing all

00:57:02.860 this stuff on his orders. And the emperor is like, sorry, what? What are you, what's happening?

00:57:06.340 Because Therese just kind of takes it upon himself, it seems like, to just start this,

00:57:10.100 start this investigation, quote unquote. Right. And so he, you know, at the same time that there's

00:57:16.140 these assassination plots against her, against her nephew. And this is like right around the time

00:57:21.060 of the, you know, the gunpowder plot and all of this. And people are trying to, there's, you know,

00:57:25.020 take out her nephew, the Prince of Transylvania. They also arrest one of her cousins, a Bathory

00:57:32.060 cousin, and imprison him. And then they open this investigation into Elizabeth all at the same time.

00:57:37.380 So three Bathory's are all getting hit simultaneously. And for Elizabeth, it's this

00:57:43.200 investigation that terzo is doing where he's sending notaries around to her properties to

00:57:47.680 get people to testify you know um do you know if her killing anybody how many people she killed

00:57:52.760 you know what have you what have you heard and they're given this immense latitude to like you

00:57:58.280 can interview men and women and and you have you know like you can do this across several counties

00:58:03.280 and basically they're like they're able to kind of come up with like a couple handfuls of people

00:58:07.280 most of whom are saying well i heard a rumor you know i've heard this i've heard this rumor

00:58:12.620 right from this from this guy um but they're not coming up with a lot of a lot of evidence

00:58:18.720 you know no one they don't have any direct family members who are going yes this person

00:58:22.860 did kill my family member like you did in other cases so he's he's testing this out

00:58:29.840 and he's gathering evidence but one thing that's i think important is to know that right away people

00:58:35.040 aren't aren't jumping on this there's not a lot of people that are are willing to do it and in fact

00:58:41.020 a lot of, you know, a lot of these things that could easily be sort of rumors tracked down,

00:58:46.080 like they're not, people aren't lining up to testify against her. In fact, they seem rather

00:58:51.100 reluctant. Yeah. And I think part of that is just because she's, I don't want to say unproblematic,

00:58:56.940 but in terms of like, this is her property, this is her land, she's like the mistress of it. And

00:59:01.800 she's not like some evil overlord that everybody takes an opportunity to slam. They're all like, 0.99

00:59:06.820 she's fine. Like she seems fine. Like if she was widely hated or feared, this would be the

00:59:13.280 opportunity for people to testify against her. And the fact that no one does, not that anyone

00:59:17.620 listened to this podcast should think, Oh, maybe she was a serial killer, but like, even if she

00:59:22.660 was widely hated, like this is where her enemies could jump on it and they're not really. So I

00:59:26.920 think that's notable. Yeah. And there's been this idea that people are so afraid of her, you know,

00:59:33.400 it's been floated that maybe they don't want to testify because they're scared of what she'll do.

00:59:37.880 But it's also, I guess, important to know that in this time period, there's a lot of civil suits.

00:59:42.580 And in fact, there'll be other cases of people where before there's even a criminal case, like

00:59:47.300 you can just sort of say, you know, hey, I think that this is shady and people will settle to make

00:59:52.720 it go away as they do today. So there's actually an incentive, particularly for people who are,

00:59:57.560 you know, who don't have money. If you do have something that seems somewhat legitimate to file

01:00:01.980 a complaint. And there are tons of complaints in the records about Elizabeth, but none of them have

01:00:07.040 to do with cruelty. They're all about like, you know, other men, like, is this land thing happening

01:00:12.040 or, you know, tax thing happening, but none of it is about any sort of physical cruelty, violence,

01:00:19.620 or mistreatment of, of her serfs, which is interesting too. So it's not as though there

01:00:24.280 are no complaints and she's shutting everybody down. It's just the complaints are all of sort

01:00:27.840 of this like legal financial property rights um this person owes me this up to up to now

01:00:34.840 so there's always just like okay this is like no one's really giving me stuff that i can work with

01:00:40.800 to like accuse her of this but then there's like i'm jumping ahead wildly but there's some sort of

01:00:46.200 rule where if you kept somebody in the act then you can then you're able to arrest them um so he's

01:00:54.360 just like, okay, I'm going to go and catch her in the act of killing somebody. But also it has to

01:00:59.060 be in the act of killing somebody in like a weird, grotesque way or something like that.

01:01:03.900 Yeah. You have to have mutilation of the body. So you can commit murder. Like that's not, 0.74

01:01:08.620 I mean, there would be a lawsuit. You'd have to settle with the victim's family,

01:01:12.220 but this mutilation of the body is like this one technicality. Cause that proves, you know,

01:01:16.220 you're not a good, a good Christian, right? It's not just a murder. It's not just an act 0.98

01:01:19.520 of passion or an act of revenge. It's like something devilish and demonic and weird,

01:01:24.480 right? If you're doing something to people's bodies. So it has to be not just that she's

01:01:29.760 murdering someone, but that she's mutilating their body. And Elizabeth knows that he's doing

01:01:35.140 this investigation. Like she's not unaware, but she also is trusting the fact that her family is

01:01:40.580 so powerful. And also at this time period, it's like the holidays. She knows that nothing can

01:01:45.540 happen until what is it like parliament is back in session or something so she's she's doing what

01:01:49.760 she can to sort of counteract this like she has like a letter of support that she gets somebody

01:01:54.360 to write um it was like the mother of a girl who did die or something like that yeah she's

01:01:59.780 definitely like aware of it and starting to uh gather you know like you said gather testimonies

01:02:04.360 and it looks like she's gearing up for a court battle she's expecting that she's going to be

01:02:08.380 summoned or be arrested and you can see that she's making arrangements for that but she's

01:02:13.640 expecting that this is going to happen in the spring because as you said nothing's going to

01:02:17.620 happen over the Christmas holidays the snow is so deep you know nobody can get anywhere

01:02:21.380 so she has a little bit of time to figure out what she wants to do and how she wants to you

01:02:26.600 know kind of confront this and so it's like a surprise raid you know at the December 29th

01:02:32.980 right like she's having dinner and Thurzo just shows up to be like what you're killing someone

01:02:37.580 in front of me like he just shows up well and he also has gotten word we find out through the

01:02:43.740 sources from a local pastors that there's a group of of girls five girls who are in quarantine who

01:02:49.580 are sick and the sources are very clear that they are sick not that they have been tortured or hurt

01:02:54.720 in any way but that they are ill and he's gotten word that these girls are sick and he may have

01:03:02.560 gotten word that one of them has died so there seems to be some reason that he strikes when he

01:03:06.820 does, assuming there will be a body to find. And these girls are from her, like from her

01:03:11.880 finishing school. Like the reason why there's girls on her property, like she has servant 1.00

01:03:15.840 girls, but she also has like, there's this school, like there's reasons for girls to 1.00

01:03:19.120 be there. Yeah. And in this case, these appear to be servant girls. These are servant girls 1.00

01:03:23.380 that are sick or girls from the local estate. The girl who does die is a maid and we know 1.00

01:03:29.960 her name, but just her first name. But these are just girls that are being treated in the

01:03:35.540 infirmary that are sick. Also people just went there for healthcare because. Yeah, absolutely. 1.00

01:03:40.200 That's where you, that's where you go. You know, that's just, this is the place where you go. And

01:03:43.320 also that will treat women. So women treating, you know, women for any sort of, and they're 1.00

01:03:48.600 being kept in quarantine. They've been seen by local pastors and priests. So this isn't anything

01:03:53.880 secret. Like the, the, you know, pastors have come in and they're, you know, like, oh, these

01:03:58.560 girls are sick. They are sick. You know, there's an epidemic going on at the time. And these girls 1.00

01:04:04.020 are very weak. And presumably they're there to offer prayers for their recovery. And one of the 0.73

01:04:12.720 girls does not recover. She dies. And Thursday was just like, great. If I go there, I'm going

01:04:18.080 to find a dead girl's body. And then I can be like, oh my God, look, she was murdered and

01:04:22.440 mutilated. So this is kind of why he jumps on this particular timing. It seems to be, yes.

01:04:28.120 And he goes in and she's like literally having dinner. She's just sitting there having dinner

01:04:32.080 and he comes in and well explain what happens so you know essentially um he comes in he surprises

01:04:41.180 her over the course of having dinner he searches the whole house and this is with his own private

01:04:44.960 army so this isn't this is with men that are loyal to terzo it's important to know these aren't agents

01:04:50.260 of the crown these aren't imperial in an imperial army so the only witnesses and like people

01:04:55.180 conducting the search are people that are in the employ of terzo himself and he seems kind of

01:05:01.520 freaked out that he isn't able to find anything right like they they search the go figure and

01:05:06.880 they find this one dead girl and they have these these other these other sick girls um and he's

01:05:13.040 upset um you know but it's also like he's writing to his wife throughout this and so you can also

01:05:18.120 like sort of check his you know his gout's bothering him this isn't like oh my god i

01:05:21.980 uncovered this horrific thing this is this is you know this is business and he's irritated at you

01:05:27.780 know, Elizabeth. And the next day, he puts on a little show for the townspeople, he kind of

01:05:35.020 gathers everybody he can together. And he brings out this corpse in some sort of cart, like I am

01:05:41.120 picturing it in a wheelbarrow, but you know, it's probably just like a cart. And he's like,

01:05:45.520 look at this body, and you can see there are marks upon it, which are evidence of mutilation.

01:05:51.960 And so these, you know, these peasants are paraded, there's, there's a handful of people,

01:05:56.420 It's less than, you know, 20 people pass this dead body and they're, you know, see these, there's purple here.

01:06:02.700 That's evidence of bruising, they're told, or some sort of, you know, beating, et cetera.

01:06:07.480 Although all of these marks kind of go through it very carefully in the book, but there's a lot of good like medical explanations with dead bodies and how blood pulls and, you know, just things do get a little purple, you know, immediately after death.

01:06:21.580 And given the amount of time we know she was, she was dead, this all matches up with what we would expect to see.

01:06:26.420 there's these two readings of of terzo is has he convinced himself because he wants to be a good

01:06:31.920 moral guy that you know elizabeth really is bad and he's just doing what he's doing because he's

01:06:36.720 a good guy and he's seeing what he wants to see or is he more cynically like you know kind of

01:06:41.740 setting this up but we don't really yeah that's my choice um but you know he's definitely puts

01:06:47.680 on the show and then there's another girl who's there who's injured and they also bring her out

01:06:53.420 You know, so everybody can see her injuries. And she has these deep dashes on her back and she has this hand. Everybody's obsessed with their hand. It's Anna of the mangled hand to see, you know, this hand. And a lot of people in the months after will go to where she's being treated by another doctor to see her mangled hand. And everybody's very interested in this hand.

01:07:14.260 But the only testimony we get about this is she says it has turned black and that this woman who works for Elizabeth, you know, has cut off the black parts with scissors, has snipped off the black flesh. 0.55

01:07:28.500 But that's what you did in those days for gangrene or for any sort of infection.

01:07:32.240 Or frostbite or whatever.

01:07:33.380 Right. Like something bad has happened to her hand and they have treated it as one did, you know, was commonplace by cutting off the black infected flesh.

01:07:44.260 But that's also given as evidence of mutilation.

01:07:48.020 Well, and you suggest, and who knows what happened to this girl, there's not a lot about it, but it sounds like she might have been attacked by a wild animal sort of thing.

01:07:54.740 Absolutely. And the thing that's interesting is, is she's whisked away. The doctor who treats her isn't ever called to testify and she's given some money and her family's given a farm, you know, so she and no one ever hears from her.

01:08:10.220 But there's all of these things that come like she's she's nearby. They could just call her into court and she could say, yes, I was tortured by this woman, but she's kept under wraps. Right. Like no one wants Anna of the mangled hand to come in and testify.

01:08:24.620 eye so this is where it gets sort of um this is not the usual order of things like you don't

01:08:31.120 usually arrest elizabeth was preparing for this to proceed in the normal way and you said like

01:08:35.840 she's got all these lawyers and people in her family like she knows how court cases usually

01:08:39.780 work um but so she's preparing for what she thinks is going to happen and thurzo is doing this

01:08:45.520 completely out of sequence order thing where he just kind of is like i just saw her killing people

01:08:49.800 were putting her under house arrest, basically. And so what does he do?

01:08:55.260 So he does. He's basically brokered a deal where he goes to her family. And at this point,

01:08:59.980 her terrified underage son and is like, look, I can have your mom executed. Why don't you guys

01:09:04.400 just agree that we're going to leave her here? This way you keep the family lands and she stays 1.00

01:09:09.320 under wraps. Will you guys agree to this? And starts kind of working out a deal with,

01:09:13.420 you know, the rest of the family members about how they could divide up her property.

01:09:18.300 and this way she's out of the way her support for the prince of transylvania you know who is his 1.00

01:09:24.320 is out of the way and she's just going to stay under house arrest for the rest of her life and

01:09:28.420 they've decided this before there's been any sort of trial or anything um that that's the agreement

01:09:32.860 and you know this because there's uh letters between the family members like well it's not

01:09:37.840 fair that you said this and they're they're haggling over and talking about what he's you

01:09:42.120 know what he's doing or not doing but the punishment has already been decided on even

01:09:46.060 this crazy pastor upon a Kenis is the day, you know, less than 24 hours after she's been arrested 0.82

01:09:50.980 is writing, okay, we know what she's going to be locked up for the rest of her life. So they've 0.54

01:09:55.280 decided this before, you know, there's been any, any sort of investigation or any sort of trial

01:10:01.420 and that they're going to move ahead with this. And, and, uh, that's what they want to do. And

01:10:06.280 obviously there are some complications, but this whole idea is that the family is going to go along

01:10:10.780 with it. And she's going to be under house arrest, you know, until she dies. And in exchange for

01:10:18.000 their silence, that they will get kind of choice bits of property and money. Which is not how this

01:10:26.260 should work or how this usually works. But in this kind of like extremely corrupt scenario,

01:10:31.180 this is what is going to happen. And so she's understandably being like, no, like, I'm going

01:10:37.320 to fight this like let's have a court trial so she's writing letters to people and trying to

01:10:41.340 figure out a way for this to to go better right yeah throughout this time period she is writing

01:10:46.400 letters and there seems to be like there's a couple points where she almost gets her way like

01:10:50.520 there's a point where there seems to be a lot of sympathy among a lot of local pastors who are going

01:10:54.920 uh maybe maybe this isn't really what happened this is kind of more of a misunderstanding

01:10:59.140 and then there's also another point where the holy roman emperor you know who's the Habsburgs are

01:11:05.840 like, we should probably have a trial. And they're preparing for a trial. They're saying, let's have

01:11:10.180 a trial. And Terzo is completely, you know, going, no, no, no, we really shouldn't. And they're like,

01:11:15.020 no, no, no, we're having a trial. Send us these papers by this date. That date comes. He's like,

01:11:18.580 oops, I forgot. I got busy. Now everybody's gone home. We can't have the trial. They're like,

01:11:22.880 we're still going to have the trial. And you see this series of delays and kind of obfuscations,

01:11:27.440 and he's coming up with excuses. Whereas everybody else is saying, let's do this by the

01:11:32.520 book. Let's, you know, let's have a trial. Oh, and meanwhile, four of her servants have been

01:11:38.260 taken off and tortured. Yes. And they've been taken, Terzer takes them to his estate. So this

01:11:44.460 is highly irregular because typically you are arrested and tried and tortured if you are

01:11:48.400 tortured, but in the vicinity where you committed your crime or where you are arrested. So he takes

01:11:53.380 them completely off of, you know, Bathory's, Elizabeth Bathory's estates, but also significantly

01:11:58.780 if he's worried about, oh, you know, they might be, she might, I guess, exert too much influence,

01:12:04.800 right, over public opinion there. There are a lot of like closer towns that are free towns that she

01:12:09.000 doesn't have influence over where he could just move them. But this is dead of winter. He's got

01:12:13.440 to take four people like in chains, in carts, through a mountain pass. Like he's really dedicated

01:12:18.860 to this. He's putting a lot of time and resources into making sure that this happens on his territory

01:12:24.400 and that the torture is conducted by people who are loyal to him and work for him

01:12:29.360 and that the trial of these four servants is conducted by people who are loyal to

01:12:33.880 and work for and owe their loyalty to him.

01:12:36.540 And so her four servants are given trials.

01:12:41.180 And, you know, it's all very kind of sad and horrific and tragic.

01:12:46.940 And there will be other women in Elizabeth Bathory's circle as well

01:12:50.320 that will be caught up in this. 1.00

01:12:52.900 yeah but she like just to be clear like these people they're put on trial um i think all except

01:12:59.180 for one of the servants are executed other people in her life are wind up executed and she's just

01:13:03.740 stuck in her house like yes so can we do some myth busting about she's not trapped she's not

01:13:11.160 bricked up in a room no she's not walled in and there's not like the slot for food although that

01:13:16.020 did happen to a contemporary of hers so it's understandable as you as you kind of dig into

01:13:20.140 this, like how those, how those wires got crossed, you know, how that came, this, that wasn't out of

01:13:25.120 the realm of question and it did happen to other women. Although in her case, it seems like she 1.00

01:13:28.860 was under a sort of elevated like house arrest, but she, you know, people were coming and going,

01:13:33.240 she was sending letters. People were coming to visit her. She was, she was sending orders. She

01:13:38.200 was continuing to oversee things and send, for example, her sons-in-laws out to, you know, sell 1.00

01:13:42.860 this and do this and bring the money back for my defense. So she is able to kind of mount this,

01:13:48.360 this act of defense where she is under house arrest in one of her in one of her castles

01:13:53.780 well just because that's part of the and i think i said this in my episode because at that point

01:13:58.680 that's all i knew but it does the part of her myth is that we'll talk about the other parts

01:14:02.880 of the myth like she killed all these girls and then she was arrested and then she was put in 1.00

01:14:07.440 this like i don't even know you know one meter by one meter room and like bricked in and she could 0.89

01:14:12.620 never leave and there's just a slot to put the food so that's not she's in her castle maybe just

01:14:17.020 like limited to a certain part of it but she's able to like walk and write letters and communicate

01:14:21.840 to the outside world so it's the sort of house arrest that happens to a very rich person in this

01:14:26.840 era yeah yeah and it's not like nearly as comfortable she would have a manor house this

01:14:31.580 is like a drafty knight's castle so we can imagine it's like a little inconvenient and cold but it's

01:14:36.100 not yeah she's not walled up in a tower you know sort of brooding over the landscape like she

01:14:42.120 is still having contact and in fact we know like you know her daughter visits her we know that

01:14:46.660 she's getting family members who are coming in and she's giving orders. She's saying,

01:14:51.020 get, you know, like, and there's one instance where she has her daughter go and get the jewels

01:14:54.940 out of the manor house, break into the treasury, get them. So Terzo or other family members can't

01:15:00.140 commandeer them. So she's still like taking a very active role in her defense and writing

01:15:06.500 petitions and kind of calling on her allies to do what they can, you know, to get her out. And it

01:15:12.220 seems like, you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility that she will be granted either a

01:15:17.960 trial or if not a trial, a pardon, because there are other cases with noble women who are accused

01:15:22.940 of similar crimes after her. And what typically happens is they have to go sit in their prison 1.00

01:15:27.560 for a year or two, then beg for a pardon. Then the family basically pays off the Habsburgs with 0.97

01:15:32.480 like a big gift or a choice property. And then they are able to either, you know, be released 0.95

01:15:38.060 and maybe go across the border to Poland or to another country.

01:15:42.340 So, you know, it seems like there might be a way out if she plays her cards right.

01:15:46.560 If not out and out exoneration, then some sort of pardon or exile.

01:15:53.000 So she's exactly she's she never stops fighting.

01:15:56.480 She's not just kind of like, well, I guess I'm in jail.

01:15:58.240 That's the end.

01:15:58.860 Like she's always writing letters, lobbying for herself, getting her daughter to take

01:16:02.840 the jewels and stuff, as you said.

01:16:04.300 so but ultimately she gets sick and dies well in house arrest yeah and there is also the sense that

01:16:12.940 terzo might have moved when he did where she's been complaining in some of the letters of of

01:16:16.580 ailments it's hard to know what is in like a new chronic condition and what's new and what's a

01:16:21.260 chronic condition but he may have moved what he did not just because of you know he knew there

01:16:26.060 was a dead girl but also because there was news that you know she wasn't in the best health and

01:16:31.320 that idea that they could just kind of wait her out. And this is a really interesting thing as

01:16:36.760 well. Like in the book you explain, and so she dies and then kind of everyone stops talking about

01:16:41.320 it for quite a while. So it's not, which I found really interesting that it's not like, oh wow,

01:16:47.280 this serial killer, she killed hundreds of girls and now she's dead. It's kind of, okay, let's just

01:16:53.740 not talk about that anymore. There's this really odd silence about it. The same way that there is

01:16:57.960 like after the Salem witch trials

01:16:59.460 or a lot of other things

01:17:00.380 where you can tell people are like,

01:17:01.720 maybe we didn't get that quite right.

01:17:04.360 And the reason why I say it's so especially odd

01:17:06.560 is at this time period,

01:17:07.660 like true crime broadsides are bestsellers.

01:17:10.340 Like people are writing books and printing,

01:17:13.140 you know, these things that are like,

01:17:14.500 look what this horrific person did.

01:17:16.040 And there's all of these things in circulation

01:17:18.140 about these serial killers, right?

01:17:20.460 That are illustrating their crimes.

01:17:21.920 There's even a book in circulation

01:17:23.140 about one of her aunts 0.99

01:17:24.120 who was supposedly like a huge slut discussing that. 0.95

01:17:26.620 so it's odd that nobody writes a book there's no broadside there's no mention of anything that 0.98

01:17:31.520 this woman who supposedly killed 650 girls in these very like horrific ways like there's just

01:17:38.660 it just stops and i guess you know we could say why is that or is it that you know the houseworks

01:17:44.640 had or terzo had accomplished his purposes and there was she you know she wasn't needed there

01:17:50.280 wasn't any reason to kind of pursue this case because they had gotten what they wanted right

01:17:55.200 Actually, I want to backtrack one minute just to explain where we get this 600 number from.

01:18:00.280 Sure. So there's a, there's a one of her, this is in the, I believe it's the third round of

01:18:06.420 testimony after the servants have been tortured as part of their trial, where finally it's the

01:18:12.660 first time that women are actually interviewed, right? Because initially it's just these like

01:18:16.400 men who have never been in the castle who were interviewed. They actually interview some,

01:18:21.280 some women and there's a girl named Susanna she's the only witness in the entire you know

01:18:27.020 in the entire case who we don't know a family name everybody else is every other woman is you

01:18:32.080 know wife of so-and-so daughter of so-and-so some sort of family affiliation so we can track her

01:18:36.520 down she's just Susanna the servant girl and she claims that she has heard so she says that this

01:18:43.900 is all from hearsay that another guy so this is third hand who works for Elizabeth Bathory

01:18:49.960 who lives 100 miles away found this like diary or some sort of account that had listed 650 names

01:18:59.080 that Elizabeth Bathory had signed it in her own hand. And that's where we get this 650 number

01:19:05.480 from, right? But what's really fascinating is this at the exact same time that she makes this

01:19:09.880 accusation, there's another case of a serial killer, German male serial killer. And part of

01:19:15.740 what's in the news and all over the press is this idea that he's keeping a diary where he lists out

01:19:20.820 all of his victims and you know has signed the list and that's part of why he is caught and so

01:19:27.220 it's really interesting that this kind of presumably illiterate servant girl who's never met

01:19:32.080 this man and never seen this herself has this account that's virtually identical to this other

01:19:38.200 account that's very popular in the press right then about a serial killer who writes down the

01:19:41.760 names of all of his victims but this is where we get okay so like we've gotten to the part of the

01:19:46.100 story elizabeth herself is dead r.i.p and the the legend of her takes off and the legend like the

01:19:53.740 guinness book of world records of it all includes this 600 number which is just one person was like

01:19:59.500 oh the same as the preacher it's like well i heard someone told me don't remember who that it was 600

01:20:05.760 it's like great that's a fact like let's let's assume that's true like if 600 girls had gone

01:20:12.000 missing from the and you say a couple times in the book it's like the population was this like

01:20:17.100 if this many people went it's like this would have been noted and it's not right and there's

01:20:24.900 also certain time periods when this is supposed to be happening where they're taking intricate

01:20:28.280 censuses of every household and so people are going door to door going like how many people

01:20:32.880 are in your household and no one's saying, you know, I had a bunch of daughters and they all

01:20:36.420 just, you know, went missing. The other thing to keep in mind is a lot of these accusations aren't

01:20:41.120 just that she's killing these like later it became that she was killing these nameless like peasant

01:20:45.240 girls because, you know, that way you don't have to find a victim. But initially it was that she 0.57

01:20:49.660 was killing and murdering family friends, that there was a conspiracy, not just of her, she was

01:20:54.860 heading it up, but there was a gang of noble women, right? Like who were essentially child 1.00

01:21:00.320 trafficking children a lot of times their own children should be murdered and in a lot of ways

01:21:04.520 it's very similar to like an 80s satanic panic like the daycare sort of thing um that these

01:21:11.260 people were all doing these like weird blood rituals with these kids and that she was heading

01:21:15.420 it up and they you know there she has these dedicated girl snatchers um but a lot of these 0.92

01:21:20.060 accusations were oh no she's killing her friends she's killing you know family members in one case 0.97

01:21:25.660 it was like her own daughter was supposed to be helping her other cases it was you know anyone 1.00

01:21:29.780 who came to her defense was a lot of these noble women who were lower down but like worked at her

01:21:35.320 court were also similarly accused so for a while there was this idea that there was going you know

01:21:40.980 there was this huge child trafficking ring all of these women are involved and then all of a sudden

01:21:45.340 after she dies it's like complete silence no one's worried about the child trafficking murder cult

01:21:50.860 anymore well and also in terms of the sort of like the torturing quote-unquote of bodies like

01:21:58.100 you talk about in the book and I found this so interesting that some of the things that people

01:22:02.000 did say or they had heard happen coincide with what medical treatments might have been that the

01:22:07.540 old woman might have been so if somebody if you're watching somebody for instance I think you say in

01:22:11.760 the book like if you pull out a tooth like a necrotic tooth and then you cauterize the wound

01:22:15.560 and if someone doesn't know that like that's gonna save the person's life you're just like well that

01:22:19.000 person's putting a red hot thing into the mouth like that must be torture so like some of the

01:22:24.120 things that people do say they saw happen at her house are probably just medical interventions they

01:22:29.280 didn't understand. Absolutely. I mean, some of this, like the, you mentioned this in your first

01:22:33.420 episode, like the ice bathing, and you're like, that's what you were supposed to do for plague

01:22:36.640 victims. Because one, they're, you know, you have to keep their fever down, right? And that's the

01:22:42.080 only thing we have is like dunk them in a river, ice water, like you've got to get the fever down

01:22:46.820 because we know they'll die if you don't. And the other thing you have to keep in mind is a lot of

01:22:51.020 these diseases but plague in particular is very gross because people are are you know shitting

01:22:55.820 themselves constantly so you're also trying to like keep them keep them clean so for a lot of

01:23:00.320 people you're like yeah of course like you're constantly having to bathe them and you're gonna

01:23:03.780 go take people and dunk them in a river like you can't keep the bath water going at this at this

01:23:08.420 volume right uh but other people are like oh my gosh you're dunking someone in their you know in

01:23:13.520 their clothes and in a river and that's a punishment or that's that's a torture because obviously it's

01:23:18.540 probably not not super fun but you know yeah and like a girl who that's happening to who's sick

01:23:25.440 like might scream or be scared of it so if you see like a girl who's terrified being plunged

01:23:30.440 into the river you're like oh wow that person's punishing them like you don't know yeah there's

01:23:34.880 a lot of descriptions too of cupping I don't know if you've ever had that done I had it done like

01:23:38.660 recently just for like a little thing on my neck but where you know they're using suction and they

01:23:44.360 talk about oh there's a girl on the ground and she's surrounded with candles and these cups and

01:23:48.140 they're talking about how you would use the candle, you'd put it in the cup, you know,

01:23:51.500 with the hot, the cold to create, create a vacuum. And so what they're describing is cupping. It's

01:23:58.380 also begs the question of like the person giving the testimony is an older male. And you're like,

01:24:02.400 why are you spying on a pre-pupescent naked girl, you know, getting, getting cupping on her abdomen 0.57

01:24:08.500 to begin with? Like, that's a little, little, little odd. But even if you are like, they're 0.57

01:24:14.300 seeing it as this is a satanic ritual where anybody else in the know would say, oh, it sounds

01:24:18.580 like they're, you know, they're not torturing the girl. There's no, there was no complaint that the

01:24:23.300 girl was in pain or screaming or anything, but just that this seemed satanic, this seemed suspect

01:24:28.280 because there were candles and they were, you know, they were doing it behind a closed door.

01:24:33.140 And because also I think that it's kind of like the old woman, like this kind of

01:24:36.780 female healer, like this is exactly the time period where like a lot of witch accusations

01:24:41.860 start happening in other parts of Europe. So I think there's some suspicion of like,

01:24:45.140 what are women doing? What are these secret like, quote unquote, rituals that like women are doing 0.99

01:24:49.860 this to girls? Like, so it's like these female healers are under suspicion. And so that gets 1.00

01:24:54.240 packaged up on this too. Yeah. I mean, this is, this takes place right at the end of what they

01:24:59.380 call like the age of Queens, all of these Renaissance Queens, you know, ruling in the 0.73

01:25:03.140 very beginning of what they call the great hunt and, you know, the witchcraft panics. And so this 0.91

01:25:07.920 is like that weird time period where we're really scared of women in power. And also we're really

01:25:13.960 freaked out by female healers. And what are we going to do? And in fact, you know, there is a 0.98

01:25:18.920 woman close to, you know, Elizabeth Bathory, who is executed for witchcraft, along with right after

01:25:25.620 the servants. So, you know, that is directly tied to like the witchcraft panic that's going to

01:25:32.360 envelop most of this area very soon. And so Elizabeth Bathry dies, like, and then

01:25:39.520 everyone kind of stops talking about it because they don't need to anymore. They don't need to

01:25:43.660 spoil her name because they've got the land and money and stuff they wanted. And then it's like

01:25:47.140 a hundred years later, a guy finds the documents of this and he's like, this is great for me

01:25:52.280 in my job as writing travel guides. I mean, and also he's a Catholic priest. So he has this,

01:26:00.980 this, this theory that he misreads the, you know, the sources as what happens with, with

01:26:05.960 Elizabeth Bathory and thinks that she was originally Catholic because there are a lot

01:26:09.580 of Catholic Bathory as you could see how that would happen. It's thinks that she was a Catholic

01:26:13.220 who converted to Protestantism and look what happened. So this is also his like, look what

01:26:17.940 happens guys, because we're in the counter-reformation of this time period. And there's

01:26:21.320 like this big PR campaign, like you don't, you know, you want to stay Catholic because if you

01:26:25.780 don't like, you're going to go crazy, bad things are going to happen. So this is like the poster

01:26:29.860 child for this like here's this example of this woman who had it all and she left the catholic

01:26:35.200 faith and then you know next thing you know she's a serial killer so don't be like her

01:26:39.600 and so he this is where like there's this pause where kind of no one's talking about it that he

01:26:45.260 finds this and then he and this is also the time period where people are really excited about

01:26:49.080 vampires yes so he writes about so this is where he he invents the whole thing and she liked to

01:26:55.480 bathe in the blood of young virgins which is like part of her legend today like that's right not

01:27:01.640 even from her timeline it's from this guy later on who just wanted to sell his um you know stay

01:27:07.380 catholic slash let me be your travel guide book absolutely and so it's so fascinating that we have

01:27:13.320 this like one like you know obscure priest who starts this and and everybody starts this rumor

01:27:19.660 and everybody's just imaginations are inflamed by it and they latch on to it and then this this

01:27:23.660 continues um you know that we're repeating it now i mean that's a very very i don't know how

01:27:29.720 many travel guides he sold but you know it's like super successful right like he managed to pull

01:27:33.980 that off and it influences everything it influences the development of psychiatry and how you know

01:27:38.860 we talk about significance a lot of things about female vanity and how women um are treated and

01:27:44.100 ideas about hysteria that we're going to see later um it influences you know the brothers

01:27:48.800 Grimm and a lot of kind of folklore and myths and fairy tales. We see her, you know, Elizabeth

01:27:54.360 Bathory resuscitated as Snow White's, you know, evil stepmother or a lot of other, a lot of other

01:28:00.480 figures. And we see her kind of used even as I think in the Cold War as like, you know, an image

01:28:06.280 of like this horrific behind the Iron Curtain, you know, scary Hungarian vampire woman. And then

01:28:14.160 later, obviously she's latched onto by, you know, video games and horror films and, and, you know,

01:28:20.680 has kind of become this sort of larger than life figure. That's the screen, you know, where we can

01:28:27.200 project a lot of our anxieties about women in power and also, you know, like female rage. 1.00

01:28:34.500 You know, this is what happens when women get angry. Yeah. Well, and because in the anger that 1.00

01:28:39.460 in common understanding is that she's a woman, you know, in her fifties and she's jealous 0.99

01:28:45.440 of these young girls. And she determines that like, if I bathe in the, if I kill girls and 1.00

01:28:50.340 bathe in their blood, it'll keep me young and beautiful. So yeah, there's something about like 0.97

01:28:53.560 a fear of aging, but also a fear of older women. Um, so it all, when that was never part of her

01:29:02.380 actual, the actual like propaganda against her at the time was never like, she was jealous of

01:29:08.380 beauty. Like that was never what it was talking about. Right. I mean, she was a politically

01:29:12.720 active widow. Right. And there were concerns that maybe she was on the wrong side religiously, 0.99

01:29:16.640 or she was too involved with her nephew. I mean, they take all political agency away from her. 0.99

01:29:21.840 Right. And the only thing that women can be powerful women are worried about is keeping 1.00

01:29:25.600 their good looks. Right. Like that's, that's all that she was interested in. And I think the 1.00

01:29:30.780 Victorians loved it and latched on this onto the story as well. You know what I mean? She wasn't

01:29:35.340 like a powerful female ruler she was just a woman who was you know driven became crazed because she 1.00

01:29:41.760 was fearful she would lose her husband's affections you know or she would she would age and be be

01:29:46.980 supplanted so by someone younger so strange yeah and so it's the fact it's like this is what her

01:29:54.240 story was and then this is what the legend was and the fact that there's like a clear

01:29:57.440 hundred year period where no one was talking about it i think really can clearly delineate

01:30:02.160 where the legend started like it was this guy it was this priest in the 1700s who was just like oh

01:30:08.040 this is a great story and so you say in the I think it's just in the epilogue of your book like

01:30:12.340 you went on some sort of like spooky tour and they're like let me tell you about Elizabeth

01:30:16.660 Bathory and I was trying to picture you on that tour at this point listening to these legends

01:30:21.540 you know it was um it was tough and I was like bite your tongue but I mean you can go on Elizabeth

01:30:27.680 Bathory spooky Elizabeth Bathory tours there are tours that we'll have a mention of are everywhere

01:30:31.060 from Budapest to Vienna to Bratislava, I mean, they will work her in. And I mean, obviously,

01:30:37.140 everybody's like, oh, let's make this as salacious and interesting as possible. This is a fun story.

01:30:42.280 But there's this real commitment to people wanting the story to be true, which is kind of what

01:30:47.620 surprised me. I mean, there's like sort of the casual viewer, the people who are like, let's

01:30:52.640 work a mention of this in because it's fun. But there also are people, you know, scholars, historians,

01:30:57.660 you know kind of fans that really really really want there to be a story of like of a woman who

01:31:04.480 is just as violent if not more so than a man that are really invested in the story or really

01:31:11.100 delight in the story you know who like to like illustrate it and make this sort of

01:31:16.620 kind of sexual overtones of this older woman you know snm like harming younger you know and it's 0.99

01:31:25.380 always like nubile young women in this version of the story. And I think what we forget is like

01:31:29.560 the, in the original story and the accusations, these are children. You know, this is an accusation

01:31:34.560 that there's a woman killing and harming children. These are prepubescent girls. These are like 1.00

01:31:41.120 eight year old, 10 year old, like little girls. Yeah. Yeah. These are not like a 20 year old sort

01:31:46.160 of, you know, kind of half naked woman with her bosoms heaving, you know. This is a story about 0.90

01:31:52.460 like kind of trafficking and killing children what you just said about how people are committed

01:31:58.420 to wanting to believe it's true it really reminds me of um the jack the ripper story yes like hallie

01:32:04.160 rubenhold wrote her book a few years ago the five where she kind of like debunks the fact that like

01:32:08.180 these were the victors are all quote-unquote prostitutes like she just explains here's who

01:32:12.640 these women are and here's how they died and here's who they were and she got so much backlash

01:32:17.280 for that because people there's so many people are really invested in like who was jack the ripper

01:32:21.940 and like the and part of that understanding is like you have to see these women as less than

01:32:27.200 people as just kind of like you can't have fun investigating it if you like see the humanity of

01:32:32.760 these women and what they were doing and what circumstances brought them to this and like

01:32:36.280 there's so much in London like Jack the Ripper tours like the same way as you're saying about

01:32:40.320 Elizabeth Bathory it's like there's a whole tourism industry dependent on this they can't

01:32:43.440 change the narrative now because that's what people want it's a weird thing yeah um the

01:32:51.320 investment in the legend, I think is something that I was struck by over and over. And that

01:32:56.180 kind of like really puzzled me. And I really kind of struggled with understanding.

01:33:01.740 So just to sort of wrap up our discussion, what I would like to do, and I did do an episode of

01:33:06.380 Elizabeth Bathory ages ago, but I'd love to revisit with you her score in these four categories. If

01:33:11.620 you have time. Absolutely. We've been talking for, I always tell people, I'm like, it'll be

01:33:16.060 like an hour it's never an hour don't worry about it so i have these four categories i'm curious to

01:33:23.120 see like if we score her where she will land versus where where her original score was so 1.00

01:33:27.140 the first category um is how scandalous was she and this is how scandalous was she seen in her

01:33:33.180 time and era and this is tricky because right some people like that pastor um were just like 0.96

01:33:40.760 she's a woman with power and she doesn't respect me and that's scandalous or like she ate meat on 0.99

01:33:45.680 of friday or whatever um and then there was this trial but so i don't know like in her actual time

01:33:51.960 and era like how scandalous do you think people saw her zero to ten see this was tough because i uh

01:33:58.840 i was like you know obviously if you bought into it you'd be like scandalous that's like nine out

01:34:05.880 of ten but in her time period you know i'm thinking this is like more like a five right or or less um

01:34:12.920 And the reason I'm saying that is that she was not known, you know, people don't seem to have believed it, like at least, you know, or any more than they believed it against some of her other contemporaries.

01:34:26.180 So I'm going with, I'm going to go with five out of 10.

01:34:30.180 I think five kind of balances, like how scandalous was she in her life versus, I mean, it is kind of scandalous that she was arrested and stuff. 0.74

01:34:38.760 um and I'm sure there are people who are angry about her being like a woman in power but I think

01:34:43.100 that's fair like if she did what what she actually was accused of doing that would be much different 0.99

01:34:49.620 than so the next category is scheminess which is just kind of like how much did she I feel like 1.00

01:34:56.280 just the fact that you're talking about like she was always like taking people to court or she kind

01:35:00.640 of knew how the system worked or she knew who to appeal to like I feel like she was always there

01:35:04.040 with a plan. Yeah, I say six out of 10. And my rationale is not just with the taking people to

01:35:10.500 court, but she's also like deeply involved in a lot of rebellions and sort of like the court

01:35:17.680 intrigue of the time period, going back and forth when her brother was alive. And so she definitely

01:35:23.760 was raised in like a schemey family, you know, just like a Medici woman would have to be pretty 1.00

01:35:29.860 savvy. We have evidence that she was, although I don't think she was over the top scheming. I think 1.00

01:35:36.160 she would have just been appropriately scheming given her Bathory family background. 1.00

01:35:42.000 Appropriately scheming. Six out of 10 seems fair. The next one is significance. So the significance 0.99

01:35:47.240 to both, I would say before the trial, like her significance, just like in her involvement in

01:35:53.240 politics and stuff. And then also significance now, just how famous she is. Like if we balance

01:35:56.900 that out i think that's going to be a pretty high score yeah where are you coming in on this because

01:36:01.800 i'm uh where are you coming in i'm like i'm feeling like an eight or nine and the reason is is i think

01:36:08.620 she's hugely significant in her time period like um if if this had not happened to her and her and

01:36:15.440 her nephew had been able to sort of pull off what they were attempting this would have this would

01:36:19.800 have altered the trajectory of all of europe right so this is huge um and i also think significance

01:36:25.720 in terms of contemporary impact in terms of pop culture and her influences on psychiatry and

01:36:33.440 criminology and you know things of that nature I think are huge I think even people who aren't

01:36:39.720 familiar with her life or legend or her exact name have some vague you know um knowledge of

01:36:48.840 this like isn't there some noble woman who was walled up in a tower or bathed in blood or they

01:36:53.160 They know some variation of this story.

01:36:56.240 Absolutely. 1.00

01:36:56.740 I think a nine is appropriate there.

01:36:59.260 And the final category is the sexism bonus,

01:37:02.220 which is how much was she negatively affected by sexism.

01:37:04.580 I think that's a pretty high score.

01:37:06.180 I think if she had been,

01:37:07.600 like she did quite well in her life

01:37:09.640 up until her husband died, really.

01:37:11.880 But at that point,

01:37:13.660 she didn't have a male protector.

01:37:15.100 If it had been a man,

01:37:16.440 if it had been like Ernest Bathory,

01:37:18.500 like he would have gone and fought wars

01:37:21.020 and probably would have retained a lot of his territory.

01:37:23.160 if he was good at battles but because she was a woman she was seen as vulnerable and all these

01:37:28.400 guys were able to to take advantage of that yeah i'm 10 out of 10 with sexism this story does not

01:37:35.200 go the same way with her being a male even with the exact same attributes accused of the exact

01:37:42.020 same thing it doesn't go down the same way so this i think i'm going to just double check my

01:37:46.840 math in my head so that's yeah so this ends up with a score of 30 and interestingly the last

01:37:52.820 time I talked about her, I gave her a 29. She gets one more point on this scale. I don't remember

01:38:00.040 what I gave her in which category, but I do think that moving her up into the 30s, like 30 versus a

01:38:07.080 29 does get her up into a higher category on the scale. But I'm glad that I wasn't so far off in

01:38:11.680 the first place with the research that I had access to in 2019. So Shelly, so your book,

01:38:19.260 the blood countess is coming out or when this episode comes out, like your book is out,

01:38:23.880 people can get it wherever. Um, and I imagine you're going to be having like various launch

01:38:27.920 events and stuff. Is there a place where people can keep up with where you're going to be and

01:38:32.020 stuff? Yeah. Um, my website is shellypuhak.com is S H E L L E Y P U H A K.com. So please check

01:38:41.800 events there and, um, you know, be happy to, to have, uh, people who have questions, comments,

01:38:48.700 are super interested in this story,

01:38:51.340 whether you're just learning about Elizabeth Bathory

01:38:53.840 or I know there are a lot of people out there

01:38:56.000 who are kind of hardcore

01:38:57.000 and have been digging into this for years.

01:38:58.960 I'm like excited to get the opportunity

01:39:02.260 to interact with you

01:39:03.080 and kind of hear your own sort of theories and questions.

01:39:06.040 And I just also wanted to mention

01:39:07.220 for folks who don't have a lot of time

01:39:09.040 in the book itself,

01:39:10.260 there's this like short little appendix.

01:39:12.200 I think it's like just a couple of pages,

01:39:14.240 but it's just debunked some of like

01:39:16.520 the top myths about Elizabeth Bathory.

01:39:18.700 like, did she have an illegitimate child? You know, she connected to Dracula. Did she have

01:39:23.320 epilepsy? You know, those sorts of things. So if you want like a sort of quick overview, 0.61

01:39:28.740 the back of the book, the appendix is the place to go.

01:39:32.000 Well, I feel like that's where you can go to if you want, if you're going to a pub quiz or

01:39:34.740 something and somebody has a question, you can be like, um, actually that's not true. And here's

01:39:38.120 the evidence. Um, just flip to the, just carry the book around with you basically. Anyway,

01:39:43.460 thank you, Shelley, so much for talking with me about your book. I'm so happy to have this book

01:39:47.260 in the world I'm glad to have Elizabeth Bathory's story revisited in this like feminist like

01:39:52.720 investigative objective sort of way after it's been so many books based on so many weird rumors

01:39:59.900 for so long but also it's just a delight to talk to you as well thank you so much for having me

01:40:04.540 back this was such fun for me too so again Shelley's book it's available now wherever

01:40:14.220 you get your books from. And the title, again, is The Blood Countess, Murder, Betrayal, and the

01:40:19.580 Making of a Monster, her book about Elizabeth Bathory. I really hope that all the people who

01:40:24.660 read it, it can kind of start like slowly writing the ship of historical knowledge, just so that

01:40:32.160 Elizabeth Bathory, eventually, maybe she won't be in Guinness Book of World Records anymore,

01:40:37.940 for instance. Anyway, and Shelley and I, I think outside of the podcast, I don't think it was part

01:40:42.600 of what we recorded we're both hoping my book rebel of the regency about carolina brunswick

01:40:47.300 is now available her book the blood countess is now available we're hoping that in some bookstore

01:40:52.160 somewhere like they're both next to each other maybe on a shelf of like new books about women's

01:40:56.020 history or something so hopefully anyway super recommend this book everybody should read it

01:41:00.840 it's a fantastic book and i if you want to get my book rebel of the regency it's available now

01:41:07.600 you can get all the information about my book and where to buy it at rebel of the regency.com

01:41:11.760 and as well though there's information about some events i have coming up i'm going to be

01:41:16.080 in halifax nova scotia on february 19th at the central library and on february 27th i'll be in

01:41:21.860 vancouver british columbia at iron dog books and i've got more events on the horizon so stay tuned

01:41:27.860 for information about all of that all the information about these events is at rebel

01:41:32.100 of regency.com and just click on events and if you've got a copy of my book and you want to talk

01:41:37.420 about it with other readers. I've set up a chat for that on Instagram. It should be apparent where

01:41:42.180 that is. I'm posting about it a lot there, but there's Instagram group chat where you can talk

01:41:45.920 about the book. There's also chat set up in my Patreon, which you can join at patreon.com slash

01:41:50.420 and foster writer. So for all paid members there, you can have a chat there. And then also I've got

01:41:55.340 a discord that some Patreon members can join. And there's a chat there because I want to have a

01:41:59.920 place where everybody can talk to everybody else about this book because there's lots to talk about. 0.99

01:42:03.740 Anyway, until next time, my friends, keep your pants on and your tits out. 0.98

01:42:33.740 patreon.com slash ann foster writer vulgar history merchandise is available at vulgar history.com 0.99

01:42:39.580 slash store for americans and at vulgar history.redbubble.com for everyone else follow us

01:42:45.380 on social media at vulgar history pod get in touch with me at vulgar history pod at gmail.com

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01:43:56.380 Could we get something a little bit lighter?

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Vulgar History - February 18, 2026

Elizabeth Bathory： Serial Killer？

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