We all have historical role models, right? Great political leaders, religious icons, brilliant scientists, or ordinary people who did extraordinary things. Inspirational figures with admirable values and amazing accomplishments. This thread is not about them. This thread is about people who went down in history for…other reasons. Usually murderous reasons. (Although other sorts of infamy are also welcome!) Let's talk about some people who did bad, bad things.
SO LET'S TALK ABOUT ERSZÉBET BÁTHORY. Or Elizabeth Bathory; I just think "Erszébet" is more fun to say. Spoiler: The only existing portrait of Bathory, age 25 Hungarian noblewoman, born 1560 died 1614. Also known as the "Blood Countess" (very metal), "Countess Dracula" (do not ever say this I will come through your computer and eat your face, also fuck you Raymond McNally you of all people should know better), or, in her own time, the "Infamous Lady" (that's how I'd like to be remembered). Also a serial killer. Question-and-answer time! "Didn't she kill like 600 of her servant girls?" No. The "600-650 victims" claim (which is everywhere) comes from one contemporary account by someone who said they heard it from someone else who saw it written down somewhere. Seriously. A much more believable number, given by one of her accomplices, is 80. Which is still a lot of victims! She might well be the most prolific female serial killer in history! Just not 650-victims-prolific. "Didn't she bathe in their blood because she was obsessed with eternal youth and beauty?" No, and the fact that no one who repeats this seems to recognize the stupid sexist assumptions behind it (or how friggin' impractical it would be to actually bathe in blood, especially before refrigeration) enrages me. There are no contemporary accounts of blood-bathing; that allegation first shows up in print in 1729 and has absolutely no supporting evidence. "Well but she drank their blood, right?" No one knows. If she did, it was probably because that's a thing serial killers sometimes do. "So why'd she kill them then?" Because she…was a serial killer. She probably did it because she liked it. Look, no one claims Ted Bundy murdered girls so he could stay young and pretty. "What if she didn't really kill anyone? Maybe she was a victim of a conspiracy because she was a powerful woman!" No. Just no. Stop now. While it's indisputable that powerful women are often targets of witch-hunts (metaphorical and literal), there's no actual evidence that was the case here. The assumption that because she was a woman in power she was threatening to the men in power is based more in knowledge of Western Europe at the time, because there's less available information about Eastern Europe. But hey, turns out all of Europe isn't Britain, and shit worked differently in the east. While women weren't equal in status, they were also not chattel; noblewomen were almost always literate and knew math, because somebody has to run the household. Bathory spent a lot of time managing shit while her husband was away at war, and then took charge completely after his death, and by all accounts was highly competent and well-respected by everyone (until they found out about the, y'know, murders). She wasn't some total anomaly that freaked out all the noble dudes; she was a widow with children who managed the estate her husband bequeathed her. Personally, I think claiming her as the victim of a CONSPIRACY!1! is reductionist in much the same way claiming she killed to maintain her beauty is. "So she didn't do hundreds of murders, but she still did a lot of murders. She wasn't martyred by a sexist society, either. So…what's cool about her?" What, doing a lot of murders isn't enough for you? Okay, okay. Honestly, part of it for me is the "but she seemed so normal!" aspect—she seems to have been a fine wife and mother, she probably came from a loving home (records are really scarce, but Eastern European nobles at the time tended to dote on their daughters), and as I've said, she did a great job as Countess. She just…also tortured and murdered her servants. (The most puzzling thing to me is how she had time for that. Must've gotten up pretty early, I guess.) If not for the torture-murders, I imagine she'd be remembered today as just another Bathory family member. SOURCES! (Some of these contain very graphic details. Proceed with caution.) No Blood in the Water: The Legal and Gender Conspiracies Against Countess Elizabeth Bathory in Historical Context - This is the best work I've found so far on Bathory; I recommend reading it first, because it points out a lot of the flaws with most other available works on her, including some linked below Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory Bathory.org - This is the site of a guy who wrote an opera about her. Beware bad web design and some outdated info, but the FAQ is pretty good and so are the reviews Her Wikipedia page
