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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to serial killers.
Who they were, what they did and how. I am your Norwegian host, Samas Viborg Thun. And tonight, dear listener, we continue our journey into the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance Eastern Europe. We left Erzsabeth Bathory last week, on New Year's Eve no less, as she was storming out of her local church.
Her priest, Minister Istvan Magyari, was shouting after her and her consorts, and asking for the bodies of the recently deceased to be dug up and examined. In this episode, which is the third chapter in the tale of the Blood Countess, we will pick up where we left off.
we will start to see more clearly the murderous excesses Countess Bathory reveled in, and we will hear the testimony of those who were there all those centuries ago. This episode is, thanks to you, dear listener, 100% sponsored ad-free.
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Feel free to post reviews, comments or questions there. Imagine if you will, dear listener, as you stand with the good minister Istvan outside his church. Perhaps it's thunder you hear far off coming in the direction of the palace at Sarvar, where the countess is hurrying off. The countess was furious.
For one of the people in her employ, priest nonetheless, to publicly criticize her was outrageous. As soon as she was safely behind her palace's thick stone walls, she started penning a letter to her husband, Count Nadasti. She demanded he return home at once, to punish the insolent priest. Her husband, who probably knew Erzsabet better than anyone,
knew that when she was in such a mood, the best thing to do was to obey. He returned home immediately. He sought out both Minister Magyari and Zvoraritch to hear what on earth they thought they were doing. To the Count's dismay and embarrassment, they did not relent their suspicions and told him exactly what they had told his wife. Killing troublesome servants was one thing,
But killing clergy was quite another. Religion was the backbone of European civilization four hundred years ago, and everyone took it deadly serious. Priests wielded enormous power, and common people and nobility alike feared their god to an extreme degree.
The notion of hell was very much real, and the Count could not punish the priest for doing his job, unless he wanted to be excommunicated from the church, or damned forever to suffer in hellfire. So the good minister, although probably very much aware that he was walking a dangerous path, wrote a letter to the Reverend Gregor Fytierus, the pastor at Kereshtur,
The pair wrote that they thought they should warn His Majesty Count Ferenc Nadasdy and his wife regarding the atrocities they had committed. They also mention a woman named Anna Darvoglia, whom, they said, had assisted Erzsébet Bathory in inhuman atrocities. Pastor Fitiareus replied immediately as follows.
My letter is meant to encourage you and also Magyari. Encourage and exhort him that he not take leave of his intention, but to proceed fearlessly in the name of God. We are by the grace of God his faithful engaged in battle, who help each other with prayer and advice.
This executioner woman, Anna Darvoglia, should, if she goes to communion, be subjected to special examination. This requires the obligation of the faithful pastors and its method, according to the Apostle Paul, regarding such a one who shows no remorse, and therefore should be excluded from the service."
Anna Darvolia is an interesting figure. Originally from Croatia, then a part of the Austria-Hungary Empire, lived in the town of Sarvar. From at least 1601 until 1609, she served the Countess Bathory, and soon after her employ, she took up permanent residence with the Countess.
She is described by the locals in the area as a wild beast in female form. Allegedly, she taught Archibet and her servants elaborate and deadly methods of torture. Hannah's favorite method of torture included beating someone up to 500 times until death finally occurred.
Due to her ruthlessness, she quickly rose in favor with the Countess, and served as her personal assistant and advisor. According to contemporary records, she was the one who advised the Countess to pray on, and, here I quote, "'peasant girls who had not yet tasted the pleasures of love,' i.e., virgins."
This fits well with the modus operandi of the Blood Countess. A few missing peasant girls would not have been a political bother, nor married the attention of civil authorities. By 1601, rumors regarding Anna's brutality were already circulating.
She was said to have designed a designated torture chamber and executioner's butcher shop within the Sarvar castle grounds. The servants were all in agreement that not only did the countess approve of this, but she was an active participant in the torture and murders. Count Nadasti was no lamb himself, and he joined his wife in her bloody pleasures.
He also had useful experience from the battlefield, fighting the Turks. Soon, the Countess was an expert in how to strangle servants and peasant girls in the Turkish style of execution. One method of execution favored by the Turks were execution by hook, sometimes called the gaunche.
Hooks were usually placed on higher places, most commonly on wooden structures specially built for this purpose. The hooks on the horizontal pillar resembled the ones used by butchers to hang meat. The victim, who would usually be naked, would be pulled upwards to the top with ropes.
and then the executioners on the ground would suddenly let the ropes loose, causing the prisoner to fall on one of the hooks beneath him randomly. If the victim was lucky, he would take a lethal wound and die instantly, but this was a small possibility. Majority of victims would get hanged from their non-lethal parts of their bodies.
and had to wait in pain there for many hours, even days. No one would intervene from that moment on, and the victim would be taken out of the hook only when he was definitely dead. A more common practice of execution by the Turks was the use of a garrotte. The victim would typically be tied to a pole, with the hands fastened behind her back.
A spike would protrude from the pole placed just below the skull, pointing at the center of the victim's neck. A rope or wire would then be looped around the young girl's neck. The countess would then be able to slowly tighten the noose as she would a tourniquet. The victim would first start to suffocate as she would arch her neck to avoid the spike.
But soon the noose would tighten so much that a spike would start to penetrate our flesh, causing massive pain, but not very much blood loss. When the spike would penetrate the next vertebrae, the girl would convulse and then die. By March of 1602, the good ministers Magyari and Zvoraric were contemplating what to do.
By now, they both knew very well what was going on at the Castle Sarvar, but they had no legal authority to intervene, only theological authority. They were seriously considering denying Anna Darvoglia the Eucharist, and possibly even excommunicating her.
Despite the continuous rumors of torture and murder of young girls, the Countess and Anna regularly attended church services as though nothing were happening. Denouncing Anna was very risky, though, as both ministers were under the protection of Count Nadazdi. Excommunication was also a theological problem between Lutherans and Calvinists at this time. However—
Upon his return home, the Count Nadasti managed to calm the two ministers. It is tempting to think he did so by threats of gruesome torture and death, but again, we must remember that the way nobility treated clergy was extremely different from how they treated common people. A far more likely solution is that he simply bribed them.
He was very wealthy, and records of his massive financial contributions to the Lutheran Church started around this time, and even continued well after his death. Any talk of excommunication, digging up of bodies, or any further public criticism suddenly stopped.
Although Count Ferenc was probably furious with his wife for letting her private fascination for torture and murder become a public matter, he knew not to pursue the matter, since he himself was a willing participant in her excesses. Ferenc was a feared man on the battlefield, and stories of his treatment of captured prisoners are graphic.
"'He is said to have danced with the dead bodies of his enemies, "'threw severed heads into the air, "'or played catch-and-kickball with them. "'His ruthlessness did not only concern his enemies, "'but his own men as well. "'A band of mercenaries in his employ "'had demanded back pay of some sixty thousand ducats, "'but had been given no such amount.'
The troops then sent a secret delegate to the Turks, promising to turn the town over to them if they could pay them the sixty thousand. The Turk leader sent ten thousand ducats. The troops took the money and began plundering the town for the rest. Nadasti rode in to put down the rebellion, and he almost immediately managed to force a surrender.
He rounded up his rebel troops and ordered that they be, and here I quote, hanged with inhuman cruelty, to make an example of them. One particular gift the Count brought back from his campaigns to his wife was a device that resembled a hand of sharp claws that could be fitted over the fingers to cut, slash, and stab a victim.
If you have seen the horror movie Nightmare on Elm Street, and are familiar with good old Freddy Krueger, you know what sort of device the Countess now was in possession of. Count Ferenc Nudaste did not limit himself to simple beatings in his torture games. He frequently ordered young servant girls to stand naked before him, outside in the courtyard.
He would then cover her entire body with honey and force her to stand there in the scorching summer sun while swarms of insects attacked her body. When the girl passed out, he taught his wife, Erzsabeth, how to insert pieces of oiled cloth between their toes and then light the fabric on fire.
One wonders what provoked the Countess to torture and murder to such a degree. It is possible that her behaviour was triggered by her early years of marriage. The Count most probably brutalised her behind closed doors, as this was not only common, but customary at the time. Husbands in this era were freely permitted to torture their wives into submission—and
to punish any act of disobedience, and to maintain their status as lord and master of the household. As such, Erzsabet's torturing seems to have started out slowly and progressively, first with pinching, biting and kicking. Then she advanced to pricking or sticking pins and needles into lips and under fingernails.
After this, she progressed to inflicting burns on her victims, or cutting them with knives. All acts of meanness and cruelty, but not yet fatal. It appears that when Erzsabett acted in concert with others, she found the courage to push the limits further. The profile of Erzsabett's victims was almost always the same.
The hundreds of witnesses who testified agreed that men were not targets of the Countess's attacks, and for the most part, mature women were not either. The victim was almost always an unmarried adolescent girl. However, mature women were not completely safe around the Blood Countess. One example stands out.
a married woman had once defied her mistress and refused to follow an order to dress up as a virgin girl to work as a table attendant during a festival the woman was described as full-figured and matronly and refused to play the part of a child
The countess became enraged at this. In her anger, she went and brought in a small log, commanding her to put it in diapers and carry it with her around the castle, saying, "'Suckle your child, you whore! Don't let it cry!' The countess even woke the woman up in the middle of the night, violently forcing the piece of wood to her breast, as though it were a baby."
Later, Archibald turned to torturing the woman, whose name was Motley, in a variety of ways, until she finally died.
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However, none of them had any legal means of pursuing the matter, especially because of the status of the Count Nadasty himself. He had distinguished himself in battle several times and was lending enormous sums of money to the Hungarian crown. At his death, the crown owed him nearly 18,000 gulden, an amount that King Matthias II claimed even he could not afford to repay.
So long as Ferenc Nadasdy bankrolled the Hungarian crown and the Habsburg Empire, no one dared touch him or his wife. The common people of the area had little or no way to seek justice or compensation. They could not seek assistance from governmental authorities, and their only recourse was to bring action against their own masters.
which rarely, if ever, proved successful, since their masters were thus their own judge and jury. Although the Count Nadasti relished torture and abuse, he did not approve of mass murder. It was very damaging to his reputation, and he forbade his wife to murder any more servants. This command would not last very long.
In March of 1601, the Count was struck by an illness that caused severe leg pains, and the condition seemed irreversible. In 1603, he fell gravely ill and became permanently disabled, and he started to make preparations for his death. He wrote two letters, one to Ferenc Bathiani, wherein he asked him to protect his wife and children.
The other letter he wrote to Georgi Thurso. On the 3rd of January, 1604, the day before his death, Ferenc wrote the following to Thurso. God has visited upon me this disease, and if I am not to survive, I formally entrust my heirs and widow under your generous protection. The day after the letter was sent, Ferenc Nadasti died in his bedroom.
It readily appears that the Count's generous contributions to the Church and the ministers under his protection had removed any moral misgivings the good Pastor Maggiari previously had held. At a funeral service, he said the following, and I quote, "...his grace fought the good fight against Satan, the world, temptations of the flesh, and sin."
He carried forth the word of God with forethought and love. Happily is he now gone to the Lord's table. He did not spend his leisure time in idleness, but was dedicated to the reading of the Bible. He was like a good father to his subjects. He distributed food and clothing to the poor and supported the young in their studies.
He ate and drank sparingly, never overburdened his heart with excess. He ate only once on Saturdays, and on all days before holidays, and then only sparingly. The more recognized and great he became, rising in the eyes of his king and countrymen, the more ever so humbly he conducted himself, because any such pretensions were far removed from his inner character.
Eight months after her husband's death, the lady widow of Nedasty went on a lavish shopping spree. She purchased for herself and her personal attendants an exorbitant array of clothing for a lump sum of 2,942 gold and 11 dinar. Both her signature and that of the Viennese merchant Georg Peck are present on the sales document.
The amount is absolutely enormous. At a time, the annual income of a senior officer of high rank or any doctor with a good reputation was approximately 150 silver, the amount of 2,942 gold and 11 dinar would thus today amount to several million dollars.
Like all of her many transactions, the countess always paid early, or within the month, and often in cash. She assumed control over all asset management after her husband, and she tended the Nadazdi fortune well. She also made sure to continue her late husband's practice of financially supporting Lutheran efforts and various clergy. Yet, at the same time,
The monks who lived across the street from her Viennese manor were so disturbed by the screaming of tortured girls coming from her residence that they hurled their pots at the windows in anguish. The woman who spent her free time torturing servant girls in private was a complete paradox in public.
After the Count Nadastey's death, Erzsabet no longer had any reason to follow her husband's command regarding murder. We cannot say exactly what triggered the escalation of torture and murder after Ferenc's death in 1604, but by then Erzsabet was certainly used to running the estates on her own. She did, however, rely on certain things for her support.
especially her steady stream of income that her husband had provided while alive. The military, as well as the social protection his high office brought her, was also something she relied on. As I mentioned earlier, most of the Nadazdi Bathory fortune was tied up in real estate holdings, crops, and livestock.
It was thus difficult to have a ready amount of liquid assets, and she had been used to having easy access to this thanks to Ferenc's plundering of Turk treasures, as well as confiscating the occasional offending European nobleman or merchant. These funds were no longer filling the Sarvar coffers, and Erzsébet was starting to feel more and more vulnerable.
To top it off, she was no longer a beautiful young woman. By 1604, Herjabeth was in her mid-forties and aging fast in an era when few people lived past fifty. If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for, it's being an amazing gift-giver. I owe it all to Celebration's Passport from 1800flowers.com, my one-stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion.
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And with that, we leave 17th century Austria-Hungary for now and return to our postmodern 21st century. But fare not, dear listener. Next week, I will bring to you a fresh new installment in the Blood Countess saga. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host, Thomas Weyborg Thune.
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