Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 83. Elizabeth Bathory - The Blood Countess REDUX

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83. Elizabeth Bathory - The Blood Countess REDUX · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to you an airwave media podcast. Hi everybody,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and welcome to Hooded What Now the history podcast that's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: not your history class with me your host Katie Charlwood,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: history harlot and reader of books. And before we get
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: into this week's episode even remotely, you all should know
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: that this is not for the faint of heart. Trigger warning.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of pad stuff going on in.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: This We've got murder, torture, incest, rape, more murder and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: general just shitty things, just lots of bad. So if
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: you are easily offended or have a very soft stummacho,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: might want to skip this one.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, Hi, and welcome.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: So many things to talk about before we get onto
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: what's happening this week?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Oh that really hurt my throat on my head.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: If you have not been keeping up with my socials, uh,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: that's oh my god.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: O pretentious? Does that sound, doesn't it?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You haven't been keeping up with my sushels. I'm quite unwell.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'm actually currently having a little bit of a different
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: setup to what I normally do for recording. Is I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: am wrapped up in the armchair that I usually read
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: my kid's bedtime stories in because I'm that parent and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: now children, it's time to read Danny Champion of the World.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm in the armchair in the kid's bedroom
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: with the laptop and the mic and blankets and my
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: son's Grogu cushion to rest my back upon because I'm
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: old and broken. So that's what's happening, which is because
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I'm in excruciating pain and I feel like my brain
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: is gonna slosh out my head any moment, and you know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I still can't eat solid food. But it's fine because
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: what we have here is we have optimism. And we
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: have nine days from day of release, because this comes
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: out on the tenth of October, the tenth of the tenth,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we have nine days to get our votes in for
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: me for the listener's choice in the Irish podcast Towards Now.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: You do not have to be Irish to vote or
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: live in Ireland to vote.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: You just have to vote.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So there's a link here in the description down below.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: You click on it. You type in who did what?
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Now? Who did what?
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Because partly there's also a podcast god who did What?
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And I feel targeted, So go on type me in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and then you put in your email address and then
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you have to click the response in the email to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: make sure they're not like a bunch of people voting
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: over and over again. It was really funny though, because
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine was like, I'm gonna look at
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: my old MSN email from the.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Nineties, and I was like, what you've got mail? Oh
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: my goodness, just like.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: People digging out their old email addresses to vote, which
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: is the funniest thing.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: It was like my pals, like I emailed from all
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: my alts.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: It did it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you. I appreciate everyone who votes me. It's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: absolutely amazing.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Just like Segue, I appreciate everybody who leaves me five
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: star reviews, which, honestly, when I'm feeling this bad, it's
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: so nice to like click.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: On and be like Katie tells history in.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: A way that's not shit, which is lovely. I love
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to hear it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I love to hear It's like my favorite.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: One of my favorite like compliments I ever gotten, Like
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: TikTok was like, you're like the horrible histories of TikTok,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: which honestly pretty big compliment to be honest.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And other news. I have one more news, one more news.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I got two more news is two more news. One
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is that I am doing my first Dublin gig. It's
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: my only Dublin gig so far, and I think it's
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: going to be the only gig I'm going to get
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to do this side of Christmas. So October twenty second,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: that's a Sunday at eight pm. I'm going to be
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: supported by the amazing Ali O'Rourke. She is fabulous and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: this all came about because I insulted her on the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: streets of Edinburgh. But yeah, so that's my opening act.
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  Speaker 1: She is amazing, she's hoping for Jonathan Vaness just fucking awesome,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and so we're gonna be We're gonna be. Well, she's
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: going to open for me. But I'm doing a live
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: podcast at Hysteria at Shiney in Dublin. So tickets there's
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: not many left as far as I know, but you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: should just you should come.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: It'll be great. We can chat after.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna have any merch at this,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: because like that's a lot to organize in a short
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: space of time, and I'm so sick, I'm so very sick.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm looking forward to have everybody there and
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: my other news is my kids actually, because I've been
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: doing like bits and pieces with the kids after school
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: because like by the time we get home, it's like nearly.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Eight o'clock, so it's a long day for them.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And we've been doing our reading or English and or Irish.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: So my little girl she won they lit girl in
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: a shacked in this so she was like the Irish
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: speaker of the week, like this week in school, and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, just very practicing's working, especially considering like
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: we're the same.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: Dialect like on like her dad, who's just I mean
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: one is from awful Ace and that's already a thing.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: But like even if he could speak Irish, like it's
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: the wrong dialect, so it's not it's not great. It'll
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: be handy for her when she has to do like
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: the Irish exam, but not now. And my son and
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: I have started making stop motion animations using Star Wars lego,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: and I've got him storyboarding things right now.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: To help him with his grip, and he is obsessed
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: with this.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Death Star.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, it is out.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's out of commission, it's out of stock, it is
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: out of whatever the toy version of out of print
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: is it's that, and that's what that is. So I
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: might have to write a very passionate letter to Lego
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and be like, please, it's the only thing he's asked
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Santa for.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Ah.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I'll forget that. But I note you're thinking,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: you're thinking got your jibber jabber in fact me. In
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: fact you I will. But first we've got to get
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: our source on. Our sources are An Examination of the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Life and Trial of Elzebed Battery by Doctor Uma Sadeitsky Cardos,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Countess Dracula, The Life and Times of the Blood, Countess
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Bathory by Tony Thorne, Elizabeth Bathary, a True Story
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: by Alexandra Bartosoitch Heroine of Horror. The Life and Work
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: of Elizabeth Bathery in Letters, Testimonies and Fantasy Games by
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Michael farn Infamous Lady, The True Story of Countess Elzebed
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Bathary by Kimberly Craft, The Guinness Book of Records, The
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Symbolic Construct, Auction of the Monstrous, The Elizabeth Battery Story
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: by Laslow Curti. And of course we have our favorites
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: History dot com and Biography dot Com. I use it
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: incomfortably good then let's begin. So the end of September,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I posted like a little Q and A on my
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Instagram and on my TikTok basically going, hey, is there
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: anything you want me to cover like through October and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: things spooky or creepy or dark from history? And I
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: think every second person requested Elgebid battery, Elizabeth battery, blood Countess,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: female Dracula, like one way or the other. They were
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: referring to Eljabid battery. And my mouth is still swollen.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: So I'm very sorry that my pronunciation this is probably
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: going to be worse than normal I have. I have
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: been practicing, so you're gonna have to forgive me. My
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: mouth hits still hasn't gone back to where it should be,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: so I'm probably gonna bugger this up quite a bit.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: But as as many of you know, one, I have
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a thing about calling people by their actual fucking names.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: We all know my opinions on Grana O'Malley, we all
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: know what it is. You call her Grace, your fucking trash,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: your trash, your trash or trash or trash. Your podcast
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: is trash, your book is trash, your gen is trash,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and go fuck it's trash. I actually forgot that I
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: ranted about this in the first time around, which is
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the second point I'm gonna make is I already did
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: this episode. This is a redux, which I'm quite happy
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to do because the audio the first time absolutely shocking.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You know how they say, like, you know, you always
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: have to start somewhere, and I did, so. Yeah. I
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: love when people come to listen to the podcast because
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: it's great, but don't start at the beginning, because the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: beginning is shit. It's it's so bad, like the audio
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: is bad. And I was even listening to my old
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: episode to see like was there something I covered that
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't in my notes, because you know, I tangent and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, I didn't even finish this sentence,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: like I would be saying something and then jump off
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: into another one. And yeah, loads of people requested that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I talk about Elizabeth BATHERI Eljabit, and I have already
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: done that. But I have also told people not to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: listen to my old shit, so that's on me. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: I kind of have to do a redux of like
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the old stuff, and I wanted to get people new things,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: but uh, y'all wanted this, so we're going to talk
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: about Alphabet Bathery, the most prolific female serial killer, as
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the legend suggests. That being said, you know, if I'm
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: talking about it, the things generally are not quite as
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: they seem.
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  Speaker 2: And now we have gone into the soft voice.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Do you like that?
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: The soft voice?
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: This is easier for me right now. I must try
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: not to cough. It's difficult, but we're going to get through.
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  Speaker 1: You may know her as Elizabeth Bathery, the Blood Countess.
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  Speaker 1: How in the Guinness Book of World Records, is listed
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  Speaker 1: as the most prolific female serial killer because not only
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  Speaker 1: did she hunt down the peasantry and the nobility alike,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: she would capture them, torture them, and sanguinate them, and
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  Speaker 1: use the blood that they drained from their bodies to
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  Speaker 1: fill her bath so that she may bathe in it,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: performing her occult rituals, and regaining her youth by soaking
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: her skin in the blood of the innocent. Except one
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: small thing, um as bollocks. It's absolute bougeit. And I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: am here to share with you why Alzebez Batherie was
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: not the horror that we have come to known her as,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: but the true terror lies in the world that surrounded
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: her and what created this legend to begin with. And
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna fucking say it, elzebeb Bathari
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: was a victim of the patriarchy. So let's crack this
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: case open and let me tell you the true tale
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: of elzebeed Bathery. Now let's start at the beginning, shall we.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And if you have been listening for a long time,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you'll know that generally women from the past, even noble women,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: we generally don't have much information about them except you
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: know that they were born and they got married to someone.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Usually, but we.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Actually have a birthday for ear Zebet. We do. She
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was born on the seventh of August fifteen sixty in
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  Speaker 1: Nibator in Royal Hungary, and this is on the family estate.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And she is born to Baron George the sixth Battery
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of Exit and baroness Anna Bathery.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: So they're both Batheries.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Now, remember this whole thing about royalty and nobility, like
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: family trees being a wreath. Now this just keeps repeating.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: It's just history repeating. So yeah, her family are noble
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: up the wazoo, like there's so many of them. So
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: like els A bit our uncle is the King of Poland,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and the Prince of Transylvania.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Like I said, they're not just noble, they're noble noble,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and I think at some point her older brother east
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Van was the Judge Royal of the Kingdom of Hungary
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: for like nearly twenty years or so. And one more
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: thing really about the batteries in general is that they're
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Calvinist Protestants.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Now in this kind of area and Europe.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: You know, you're generally you know, Catholic or you're like,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: h the docs Christian. You know, there's not a lot
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of just you know, Protestantism like down this vein. But
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: they were, and yeah, that probably wasn't the best considering
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the area they're from. Kind of ended up well how
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I put this weird. But anyway, back to Elghabet, so
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: her childhood now, again, surprisingly I don't know much about
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: that because women in the past not really a lot there.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Back to Elgebet though, now we don't know a lot
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: about her childhood. Again, being a female in the past
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: kind of has its own issues, but also not the
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: best documented. Yeah, yeah, so we do know a couple
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of things about her childhood. We know that she was
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: raised Calvinist, we know that she was well educated, and
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that she had a falling sickness. So we're going to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: take this in turns. And I already mentioned the whole
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: religion thing. You know, religion is kind of an issue
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: in general and history and even now right now in
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: the world, because we can't just get.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Over it, Nope. But yet she also has this very.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Typical European education, So you'd see this a lot with
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: even like Catherine of Argonne in Spain and Henry the Eighth,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: they were given this sort of humanist, very very well
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: rounded education. Like the men and the women, the boys
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and the girls, I should say, they were all like
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: trained well because you didn't want a stupid kid. You
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: didn't want things to get messed up for you when
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you were in alliances and whatnot. So yeah, you didn't
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: want that. Like, if you're entertaining dignitaries and people from
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: other countries, you do not want to embarrass yourself, and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you certainly don't want your children to embarrass you. So yeah,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: through her schooling, Alghebet learns Latin, Hungarian, German, Greek, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: that's just the languages. She's a felthy wee polyglot. But yeah,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: she also learns arithmetic, so she learns math, which is
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: good because everybody should have like a basic understanding of math,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: just even girl math at this point, just a bit
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: of it. So yeah, she's well educated. She has to be.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: She's a high ranking noble woman and a very tumultuous
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: kind of zone. And yes she's she has They call
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: it falling sickness, right, and modern physicians some agree, some don't,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: because you know, when you're getting descriptions of things from
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the past, some things are phrased odd or whatever. But
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the general prevailing theory is she had a form of epilepsy,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: because they describe what seems to be seizures, right, So yeah,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the prevailing theory is that it's some form of epilepsy.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: And fun fact, a treatment at the time, during this
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: medieval era for epilepsy was to take the blood of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: someone who you know did not have epilepsy, and you
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: would rub that blood onto the lips of someone who
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: did have epilepsy because it was supposed to I don't know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: cure or the falling sickness pass on good non epileptic
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: germs I don't know. I'm not a y olda time physician.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they were thinking.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: But they thought this should help?
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Fuck it?
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Why not? I mean, yeah, I guess you go do
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the ol day medicine stuff, wipe some blood on your lips.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Like does it have to be a specific type of blood?
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Like whose blood would they be using? Do they have
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: to be her age or like the age of the patient,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: or could they just be like anybody's blood? Like?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: What are the rules and this?
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: If anybody knows this, tweet me DM me fill me
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: in on this information.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I must know anyway.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: In fifteen seventy three, when she's thirteen, she is betrothed
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to Count friends Nadasde, who is five years older than
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: she is. So the Nadasdis they are a very wealthy
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: family and they own quite a lot of Hungry. Actually
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: they own quite a lot of Hungry and the batteries.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: They own quite a lot of Transylvania. So they both
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: have a lot of land, a lot of money, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of power. Now the batteries they are actually
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a higher social rank the Nadasde's, so her side is
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: much higher up than his. So her social rank is
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: higher than his. Now they are betrothed, they're engaged there
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: to be wed. And although there is this commitment, there
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: is this agreement because that's this is this is a
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: political alliance, it's a financial agreement. This is just you know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: medieval royal marriages because yet families marrying into each other,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: it's all to ensure like political stability, social growth, so
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: on and so forth. And so ELL's a bit and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: for ence, they get married two years later. Now she's young.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And this is the thing people forget about the medieval
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: times is they think that just because like royals and nobility,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: they arrange these marriages young, they didn't necessarily want them
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: out like binking, like this wasn't part of the thing.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: That was more to secure it than it was to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: start procreating. You know, that wasn't on the cards because
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you know, generally they had a basic understanding that thirteen
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: year olds should not be impregnated and give birth because
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: they're still basically children. Okay, it's not a thing, it's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: not a thing, it's not a lion's thing. But anyway,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: they get married two years later, in fifteen seventy five,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and he's you know, he wants to give her a
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: good wedding gift because you know you have to and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you know, does he go for like some jewelry spaces
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: from across the continents. No, he thinks, you know what,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: girls love, girls love castles. We do, we fucking love castles,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: And so as a wedding gift, he gives her the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Castle of Chita.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: But he doesn't just stop at a bloody castle.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Oh no, he also provides her with like a bunch
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: of houses and seventeen seventeen villages. They're in this sort
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: of area. So he gives her this big chunk of Hungary.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Like now it's like modern day Slovakia. And I think
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the castle is it has a different name in Slovakian,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: which is chack Titz, which I would apologize for if
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I have pronounced that really badly, please forgive me.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: But yeah, not bad for a wedding gift.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I don't think a couple of villages, you know, who
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: tracks a land a castle? But yeah, their wedding day
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: is wow, it is the highlight of the season because
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: you know, they're really fucking noble again, it's it's a
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: real you know what I mean. And so it is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like such a big deal that they had four and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a half thousand guests at their wedding, again, all from
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: like the top nobility, the royals, and it is just
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: like the tip top of like Transfervanian Hungarian nobility, society, royalty.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It's just the whole shebang, you know what I mean.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And it's like the event of the Yeah, it's like
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the thing to go to. But yeah, remember how I said,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: like she outranked him, like socially, so because she is
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: like in the higher part of the hierarchy.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: She keeps her name.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And he just kind of adds her name onto his,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: so like he just kind of claims that. But yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: he's he's like a late teenager at this point. And
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: not long after they're married, for Rends, he gets the
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: fuck at Dodge because he has to go and continue
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: his studies, and like he's he's not really around too much,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: which is not unusual for marriages at the time. You know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: she's got her only castle over there in Hungary. He is,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: you know, doing his thing. He's away at college. It's fine,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and then he gets a job. Effectively, he's like, yeah,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: away because yeah, when he actually completes his studies, he
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: is appointed the chief commander of the Hungarian troops for
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: King Matthias the Second, As it turns out, for ends here.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: He is an absolute fucking monster on the battlefield, Like
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: he ends up with the Moniker, the Black Knight of Hungary,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: which is good, you know, for Hungary, because they're all
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: fighting the Ottomans, and he is just on his way
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: slinging a sword at the Ottomans.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: And maybe not a sword, an axe, pike, I don't know.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: A pike just does not seem noble enough, you know,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: mace Maybe mace seems awkward.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Does it not seem like an awkward like tool for ba?
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like a double bladed axe is just like
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: a very manageable weapon for a strong, athletic man of nobility.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: But that's not the point. The point is back home,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: els Abit is doing her thing because he's you know away,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: you know, living his best life. So because he's away
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: doing his fighting, this is all part of the power
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: for her. So from the age of fifteen, she's ruling.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So she's ruling these estates and villages and these huge
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: tracks of land, and she's managing all of Forensa's holdings, which,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: as it turns out, really bloody vast because she's managing
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: business affairs and all of these states, and like during
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the Long War, she's providing medical care, defending these areas.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Because the area in which Chita is it's very strategic
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: because it's the trade route to Vienna.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: So this is an.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Area which is kind of under attack a lot. It's
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: kind of in demand. It's a high value area. And
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like I should explain this a little about
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Hungary in general. So well, today it's like modern day Slovakia,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: but Transylvania and Hungary kind of in this time period
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it is, I mean, it's a litt bit confusing because
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: it's it's a strange, semi independent kind of state, kind
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of because this sort of chunk of area that the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Bathary's own especially I don't know if you know much
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: about complicated European political structures and conflicts, but geography as
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: we know it, and we kind of see it as
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: specific borders of land mass, whereas in the medieval period
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: things would change depending on the boundaries should change depending
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: on sort of political allegiances, alliances, religious areas like they
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: would all come into it. So like Transylvania itself, it
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: is like sometimes part of Hungary, sometimes part of the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Holy Roman Empire. Remember the whole thing about Calvinist Protestantism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: it's also its own little independent like thing. And then
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of course you've got Automans who are always trying to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: like take control of it. So yeah, it's kind of
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a wobbly wobbly, you know, moving about a bit. The
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: lines are constantly changing. And again because Iljhebit is sort
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of connected to this and also her area in Hungary.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: There's a lot going on there and.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Parts of it are basically getting raided quite a lot.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: So she is consistently taking charge. And again from the
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: age of fifteen, let's not forget that she is managing
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: an area, managing the people, and protecting it while it
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: is consistently under threat, especially this very strategic trade route
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and the Ottomans they are coming in and raiding and chait.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yet it's constantly being plunned. I mean, you've got Sarvar,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: which is like in worse peril because it is right
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: on the border between Royal Hungary and Ottoman occupied Hungary.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: So not only is she having to like manage his estates,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: like she is officially charged with managing these estates, so
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: she's doing that, and she's involved in all of these grandiose,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: massive matters. She's also intervening in the lives of everyday women.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So she is. And so we have these documented events
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: where she is supporting women whose husbands have been kidnapped
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: by ottomans. She's providing aid, so you've got medical aid,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: financial aid, food aid. Like she's coming in on all
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: fronts because you know, these women, like men, are at
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: this point the main breadwinner right quite literally for some
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of them, and they're not there anymore. So they're lacking
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: all of these forms of protection. And that's where Algabet
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: steps in. And then we have this incident which I
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: think is a testament to the type of person al
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Jabet is, which we'll get back to right after this break.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And we are back.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: This woman comes to her and she comes to her
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: on behalf of her daughter. This woman comes pleading to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: el Zabet because her daughter has been raped and has
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: been impregnated, and basically al Zabet she steps in and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: she gives this this woman her daughter. She gives the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: daughter agency and she says, you know, you're okay, I'm
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: perfectsing You're okay, You're not like a fallen woman, This
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: is not your fault. And she supports her, and she
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: lets her know that she is provided for and cared for,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: like she's not going to be shame walked on the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: street or thrown out in the gutter like she's okay.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this is what Alghebet FATHERI is doing. She
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: is managing estates, defending castles, running hospitals, protecting the lives
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of the innocence, you know, like all evil blood countesses do.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: My what a vicious bit she is.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: So throughout this time, Alghebet does see her husband from
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: time to time, generally long enough to get her knocked up.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: So they have five kids in total, and I think
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: only three survive into adulthood. So yeah, well she's doing
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: all this other stuff. She also has to raise her children. Now,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't raise them in what we would say is
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: through traditional raising of children, because you know, there would
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: be like teachers and scholars and maids and nursemaids and
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: everything else, like master of sword and all that kind
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: of thing. There would be people to do this stuff.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: But something else a bit would have done being a
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: lady in the nobility, especially in Europe in the time,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: because she had a court and members of the court
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: who would send their daughters to her, like noble girls
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and young women. So they would send them there to
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: kind of like the best way I can describe it
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: as sort of like a finishing school. But this is
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: again really common within the nobility. So you would send
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: your kid off to someone else, like the lord or
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of the realm, and then they would send their kid
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. And you know, it's kind of a big
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: deal to have someone of great nobility staying with you
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: because you know, it really helps your social rank. But
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: it also helped build like these political alliances. It also
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: meant that if you had someone's kid, you know, they
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: were less likely to you know, attack you and you
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: surup your power and whatnot, you know what I mean.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, you hope they wouldn't put their child's life
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: at risk, but it's practically medieval anyway. That's how alliances
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: were made. So teenage daughters of noble families would be
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: sent to Elseebetz Court and they would go finish their
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: education and learn courtly manners. They would learn to be
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: functioning ladies of noble society. You know, they would be
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: under the care of Elzebet who would teach them how
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to be proper young ladies. And a part of this
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: as well is she would make sure that they were
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: protected and they were chassed, and so they would be
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: ready for husbands, so they could be you know, offered
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: offered as a bad way of saying it, but technically
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: yes to like decent members of the court. Because if
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: you were part of Elzebet's court, because she was such
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a high ranking noble, like, your chances of marrying up
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: or at least marrying well, like, your chances are much
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: higher there. It's going to raise your eligibility levels to
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: find a high ranking husband, you know. And so at
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: some point during this era, when Forends is away fighting
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: some other war, I don't know, he's always fight more.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: There is this epidemic just like sweeping through the nation,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and this disease has an outbreak at court. Now, odds
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: are it's sweating sickness or something to that effect. Like
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of information on what it is,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: but I feel like it's so a small group of
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: these girls from the nobility, they get sick and they
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: die and els a bit.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: She would turn to.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: The bodies, to the family so they can have you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a proper burial, you know, a Christian burial, And so
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: she ensures the bodies are sent back to the families.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: And this is the only documented case we have of
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: young girls women dying at her court. And so the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: families of these girls, they very much agreed and believed
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: that the girls passed away from this illness, so that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: one mother goes so far as to provide a sworn
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: statement to a notary saying that her daughter died of
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: this sickness and that it's not the fault of the countess,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and that she did everything in her power.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: To help them.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: So this is still all the war is going on,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: you know. And Elzebet she is running the whole shebang,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: and she's running these estates, and she's running them so well,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: in fact, that these estates are incredibly wealthy. She has
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: what I like to call fuck you money, absolute fuck
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: you money.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: She has so much.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Money that she is able to loan money to King
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Matthias for the war effort. And she does this from
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: about sixteen oh one now for rents. On the other hand,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: things aren't going great for him, so it's not clear
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: whether he has an accident or an incident of some
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: kind or he has some sort of debilitating or degrading condition,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And because he starts having this excruciating pain in his
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: legs which he never recovers from, like by sixteen oh three,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: he is permanently disabled. He has no use of his legs,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and on the fourth of January sixteen oh four, Florenz
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: passes away at the age of forty eight. But knowing
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that his end was nigh, Florentz entrusts his heirs and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: his widow to Giorgio Thurso, which honestly may have not
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: been the best idea because Georgio, who also happens to
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: be a cousin of el Zebet, kind of made a
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: whole career of stabbing people on the back, So again
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: not the best of choices. So like, within a relatively
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: short time period, Arizabeta lose is not only her husband
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: but also her brother, like they pass away in like
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a pretty close time frame, and her oldest son he's
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: only like six years old at this point, and so
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: she has to become the regnant. I mean, she's already
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: rolling anyway, like she was already doing it, but now
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: she's officially the regnant for her son because he can't roll,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: he can't be regent, yet he can't rull in his
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: own stead, you know, so she's you know, doing it
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: for him. And you know, I don't know how close
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: she was with her brother, and I don't know how
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: close she was romantically with friends. But uh, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: it's going to be tough to lose two constants in
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: your life, especially in a short time period. Also, in addition, furthermore,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: it also cuts down two streams of revenue. So she
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't have income you know, from for end being the
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Black Night of Hungary. And she also doesn't have money
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: income coming from the estate of her brother because he
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: had no son to inherit and you know, patriarchal bullshit,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: all of his estate goes to like some distant cousin
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: instead of you know, his nephew, which on the family
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: tree definitely seems like a closer branch. And yes, so
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: basically everything that's her husband's is now our sons technically technically,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: but yeah, so she's governing in his stead anyway because
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: yet you know, he's sex probably best not to let
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a six year old rule estate or half a country.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I just feel like, not the.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Most reasonable of options to be honest.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, she's a widow and she has fuck you money,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and she has huge estates again strategically located on the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: way to Vienna between here and here, just like a
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: really good place to have. And yeah, everyone thinks because
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: she's a widow, she's gonna be a soft target without
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a man to protect her, and she's like, absolutely fucking not.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: So in sixteen oh six, this count comes in and
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: tries to like seize one of her estates, and she's like,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: fuck this for a game of soldiers and direct quote,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: she says, I will not keep silent. I will let
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: no one take my property. I just wanted you to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: know this. Do not think I shall leave you to
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. You will find a man in me. Basically,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: what she's saying is fuck around and find out. I
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: think love the idea of us a bit batthery, just
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: doing the equivalent of being just like fu ground and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: find out beat Oh my god, there's a bit battery
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and Alice of Battenberg my two favorite ghosts. Now these
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: are my ghosts, all of them so much. But yeah,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: she's this wealthy, powerful, strong woman in an error with
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: that really wasn't comfortable accepting those features in a woman.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And so at the same time, as you know she's
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: been attacked, she is putting pressure in King Mattiats to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: pay back what some may call substantial debts, considering she's
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: been funding the crown's wars for I don't know, a
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: couple of bloody decades.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: And then at the same time.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Her nephew was it cousin. She has a relative, another
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: relative who is the Prince of Transylvania, and he is
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: gunning for Kingmatized his throne.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: And you know, generally her name is Gorgon or Gorbon,
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: it's a gename, so generally wouldn't have really been like
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: a massive contender, except with Elzebet's power and money behind him,
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: he becomes a force to be reckoned with because el
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: Zebet is a force to.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Be reckoned with, and naturally she has to be stopped. Now,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: for about a year, Georgia Utherzone who thanks to letters
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: from his wife who consistently forgot to write in code
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: that he was spreading rumors around sort of the clergy
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: about Elzebet, because who are people going to listen to.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: They're gonna listen to, you know, men of the cloth.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: So he has them.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: Spreading rumors about her, right, and so he shows up
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: on the twin ninth of December sixteen ten and he
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: interrupts the Countess's dinner. He storms in, interrupting her eating.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: But like they always say that they stepped in her
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: and she was torturing a girl, which you know she wasn't.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: She was in the middle of her dinner like it's okay,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: no like, But Georgia wanted to catch her in an
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: unsuspecting moment because you know, he was a cousin and
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a member of the lower nobility, and luckily enough, the
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: palatine of Hungary, the viceroy basically kind of like the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: chief justice. And so he decided when he took that
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: role he was going to a gun after Elgabit very
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: helpful in fact, that he had been entrusted with her care.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: And so any goes because he wants what she has.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: He wants her money, he wants her land, and he
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: wants her power. So he gets this palatine gig and
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: it comes with power and wealth, just not as much
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: as she has. Because he has already started these rumors
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: swirling around for a long time. He has been building
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: his quote unquote body of evidence, and by that I
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: mean bunch of hearsay mainly revolving around her doing dodgy
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: shit occult things, which, if you know anything about this
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: time period, people were either talking about the occult, or
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: looking into the occult, or studying the occult, or learning
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: in many occult things so much to avoid the occult.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: It's basically an a robbers of occultism. It's just a
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: weird fascination even today. Like think of how many true
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: crime shows we watch or listen to. But we're going
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to go out and commit a crime, at least not
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: a big one, maybe a small one, like breaking one
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: of those weird laws like don't walk a duck up
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the high street at noon, you know, one of them,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: because that's just funny. Although what led to that law
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: being written, You know how much of an issue was
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: a duck in the high street. So Georgio shows up
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: with his duds, he's flanked and is supported for no
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: reason whatsoever, certainly not a crippling debt, is King Matthias.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: So he has sent Georgio in to investigate, and so
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: he rounds up all the servants and separates them from
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Elzebet and she is surrounded by the gentry and the nobility,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: and she's like, what the actual fuck is going on?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: You want to help me out a bit here, And
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: so Georgio spends a year just like collecting witness statements.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: The majority of just feels like hearsay, because a lot
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: of it is like this happened, and I saw this body,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and there was like totally a body over there, and
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: some people are missing all the while she's under house arrest.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Now people are like, there's people missing. Yeah, there's been
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: wars constantly for the past couple decades, Like people are
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: going missing, You're being raided, Like, yes, of course people
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: are missing. That's something that happens in this time period.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: You know, slavery isn't new. Also, like people got kidnapped.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: But yeah, there isn't even like a record of missing people.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And this is a time where people are writing shit down,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: you know. But while she is under house arrest anyway,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: as I should say, Georgio's wife goes raiding the Countess's rooms.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: So she is looking for jewelry and clothes and all
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, right, So she basically goes in and
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: steals all their nice shit, like yew, that that seems appropriate.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this year is spent collecting these witness statements,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: and by collecting witness statements, I mean horrific torture, which
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: as we know, generally doesn't hold up in a court alone. Now,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: but eventually this trial goes ahead. I say trial, it's
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: not really a trial because Erzebit isn't allowed to speak,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: she doesn't have any sort of advocate. There is not
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: like a council. It's basically Georgia going in and telling
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the court what he believes to be true. And so
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: he gives this fucking laundry list of just absolute gore.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: He's talking about girls between the ages of ten and
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: fourteen being burnt with candles, having nails poked into them, tongs,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: their feet, being burnt with hot irons, searing rods. This
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: is a particularly graphic one skip forward about fifteen seconds now,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: steering hot rods pushed into the vagina like then she
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: has freezing water torture where they're thrown in and then
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: there's just abusive servants. So, according to this testimony, she
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: kept her servants chained up every night so tightly that
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: their hands turned blue and blood was just spurtling out
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: of the wrists right now. Correct me if I'm wrong,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: but that sounds like a really good way to get
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: stabbed in your sleep or have your morning tea poisoned.
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying, so.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's talks of her beating a servant so loudly
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: that neighboring monks are just like are literally complaining and
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: throwing clay pots at her. Of course, she also strangles
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: a certain to death with a silk scarf alah the
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Turkish way. Another thing she supposedly did was stitch her
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: victims lips and tongues together, and she makes her servants
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: sit and bathe in baths of nettles, beating victims to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the point where there's so much blood they had to
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: use ash from the fireplaces to clean it up and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: absorb it all. She also smeared girls and honey and
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: left them outside to be devoured by the ants.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: And the bees and the flies.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: She starved them, and if they were thirsty, she forced
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: them to drink their own urine. And what I think
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: is like the weirdest slash creepiest one actually is she
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: killed a bunch of servants and then stuffed them under
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: a bed. Five of them stuffs them under a bed
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: and then feeds the corpses as if they're still alive. Then,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: of course we have the Iron Maiden. Of course, the
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: Iron Maiden comes into this so she would place victims with.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Then the Iron Maiden a device supposedly provided to her
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: by her deceased husband, the Black Knight of Hungary. Finally
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: we have the bathing and Blood. Now this information is
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: mainly received from four servants who were tortured horrifically. They
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: had these four female servants, I might add, out of
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: three hundred people questioned, three hundred and four, so they
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: were elderly, elderly servants, all old women. They were seen
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: as accomplices, right, They had their fingers turned off with
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: iron tongs, and once you know, they had no fingers,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: their bodies were thrown into large fires. And there was
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: supposedly one male accomplice who, because his man was less involved,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: somehow he had a you know, a more considerate death,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: which was being beheaded. They decapitated him before then throwing
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: him into the fire. And a lot of the nobles
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: they just got to go okay, So basically no one
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: gets to cross examine, and all of the information is
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: given via fucking torture under duress. So let's break this
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: down a little bit, shall we. So first of all,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the Iron Maiden. Lots not of talk of this Iron Maiden,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: except the Iron Maiden wasn't a real thing. Just ask
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: any medievalist, like anyone, they will confirm this for you.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: It's fake.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: It was invented by the Victorians, because you know, Victorians
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: ruin everything. So it's really weird that this device gets
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: brought up so much because, uh, this is one of
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: the things. I think its just tacked on over time.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: But anyway, you know what else airs about is accused
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: of breathing in blood, now bathing in the blood of
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: virgins to keep you young and beautiful. No, no bollocks
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to that, because the one thing that always seems to
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: slip the mind of whoever discusses this is that blood
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: coagulates really fucking quickly, like you're talking five to eight
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: minutes before it starts getting all like sticky and gloopy,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: So bathing in it wouldn't really work.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: It's sticky.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: It's not as it looks in the movies, like, oh,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: it's a thing of blood, you need water and stuff
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to it. But if she's wanting this for I don't know,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: occult reasons. She's gonna want this pure. So on top
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: of this, like being the type of nobility she was
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: bathing that much, not really not really a huge deal.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: That's why they have their shumises, you know, so they
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: don't have to bathe so much. So yeah, Also, also
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: she's supposed to have personally tortured all these young girls.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing. The blood countess.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: As a bloody countess, all right, she wouldn't actually torture people.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: You know, she's too high up. She wouldn't get her
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: hands dirty. If you're noble, you have other people to
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: do that for you. So even if she was torturing people,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: which is yeah, she would have her servants to her
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: for her, like she would have a jailer or you know,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: someone in charge all of that. That would be their
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: specific duty. And here's the thing as well, this is
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: no different to what men of the same power would
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: be doing in the era if there's a reason to
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: torture somebody. Again, not condoning it, but if there was,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: you know, they would have someone else do it because
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: it's below their pay grade, you know. And weird that
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: nobody brings up so much when men do it, But
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: because this is a woman, it's somehow worse. So on
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: top of this, on top of all of this, this
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: is a time period where people are writing shit down
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: and she is supposedly what murdered what six hundred girls? Yeah,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: there's not one letter of complaint. Like if there were complaints,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: and there were complaints, they're written down.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: Like this is a.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Time period where if somebody was injured or harm or
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: you take somebody's goose or chicken, you know, there would
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: be a complaint, there would be a lodgment, it would
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: be written somewhere. Someone would have gone to a notary,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: somebody would have gone to the somebody higher up. They
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: would have bypassed her right. And the reason they say
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: it's like sex hundred girls is because of this supposed book.
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: Now this is like hearsay upon hearsay, because it's basically
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: this servant coming forward, this witness and being like I
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: heard this other servant say they saw this book with
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: like sex hundred and fifty names of all the girls
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: that the countess killed. Uh yeah, yeah, except no one
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: claims to have seen the book themselves. No one can
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: provide any evidence of this book. And on top of that,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: nobody mentioned the book until this chick comes in and
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: this is going to shock you all. But at not
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: one point during the entire year he's doing this investigation
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: does he find this fucking book. So, yeah, we have
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: no book with this list of supposed names, and there
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: are no official records of these supposed missing girls. So like,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you want to get the testimony of the nobles
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: whose daughters are missing? Because remember she killed everybody, She
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't discriminatory in her murderous ways allegedly, So where were they?
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: Like this is a time where betrothals were happening, you know,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: where did these girls go? Where is this sort of
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: notification of this dissolving and this dissolving and this fellow
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: marrying someone else? Like where's the information? Where are the
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: reports of these missing girls?
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: Like peasants?
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Eh, you know, you can understand somebody not mentioning that,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: but fucking nobility, they're gonna go to somebody after like
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the third girl goes missing, Like don't you think they
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: would have made a bigger deal? Like there's this sort
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of account that the nobles went well, like thirty girls
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: over the course of like twenty years went missing. Yeah,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: fair enough, because this is a time before penicillin in
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: the Western world. You know, like.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: People died.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Infections. You get an infection, you're.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: Fucked, like you know what I mean.
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: So this nettle situation, So the thing about the nettles
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and the needles and stuff like that, a lot of
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: that actually aligns with folk medicine, like contemporary folk medicine
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: of this era. So Ken is like this information is
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: being pulled and twisted, and these numbers throughout the trial
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: they jump. It's like four hundred here, six hundred and
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: fifty there, thirty there, Like it just depends and it
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: just moves around. And again, we don't have any names.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: We don't have one name of one girl she supposedly killed,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: not one. And this is gentry, even if they are
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: the lower gentry, Like we should have at least one name.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: So back to Giorgio and his evidence collecting. Even though
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: he apparently showed up while she was in the midst
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: of torturing someone, it still took him twenty four hours
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: to actually find any evidence and bring it forward. Like
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: what's weird is that over the course of this year,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: no body is found not one body. Like, if you've
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: killed six hundred and fifty people, you know you're gonna
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: find graves, mass graves, because you know, if you're gonna
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: dig a pit, you're gonna dig a big pet. You know.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: Lest we forget incinerating bodies, it's tough. You have to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: get the fire to like a certain point. And if
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: she is burning as many bodies as she's trying to,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: that's that's not gonna work. Like she's not gonna get
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: to that point. Like that's a lot of work. Did
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: she even have enough servants for that? Like that's yeah,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: you know, and these graves, like you would find mass graves.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: If Georgio Thurso did find these bodies, they would need
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: to be provided to the relatives because this is an
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: era where everyone's really fucking religious, so they would need
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: to be interred in hallowed ground. But again, no fucking
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: record of that either. So this trial is basically a
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: big show because it's not like an official trial, and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: although King Mattias is like behind it sort of because
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: you know, if she ends up being you know, guilty,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: then he can basically write off his debt to her.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: But the thing is as well because of the pressure
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Matthias is getting. He ends up asking for an official
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: trial for three years, and for three years nothing happens. Luckily,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Arizeba is smart enough to write to the nobility, to
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: write to her family, and to get all of her.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Ducks in a row.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: She ends up dividing her estates and her wealth you know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: all about to her family to ensure that they are protected.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Everything was divvied out because they didn't want a revolt
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: from the batteries, especially because they couldn't quite prove as
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Abit was guilty and they couldn't execute her because that
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: would have been a fucking opera and would have caused
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: a war, so they just put around her house arrest.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: That being said, Georgie is still trying to send her
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: to like a nunneray because he just wants her out
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of the way. He doesn't want her around. But yeah,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: she's been working to get everything sorted, the estates, her inheritance,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: possessions all going to where they need to go, and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: so by January sixteen eleven it was at officially is
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: put under house arrest. Now Georgie he writes that Aerzebet
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: is bricked up in her room, but with like a
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: little hole at the bottom to like put stuff through,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: like a little hole for food. Doesn't seem that fun.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Does seem like a little bit of a prison cell. Now,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: he writes that that's what happened, but there are these
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: other accounts that suggest that she literally just is under
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: house arrest and she's able to walk around, but she
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: is effectively guarded. She has like like like a bodyguard,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: except they're in charge of keeping her in the castle,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: you know, And probably not the worst instance she could have.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, probably for someone who's used to having their
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: own agency and independence, not super fun. But yeah, she's
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: just kicking about her house, well, her castle, so not again,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: not the worst instance. Now, on the twentieth of August
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: sixteen fourteen, she complains to said bodyguard that her hands
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: are cold, and he's like, go lie down, you're fine,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and so she goes. She lies down, and when they
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: go to checking her the very next morning, she's dead
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: and the Countess airs a bit battery passed away in
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: her sleep at the age of fifty four.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Now Airs a bit.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Her body is allowed to be removed and interred with
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: her family crept, which is interesting because for someone who
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: was apparently such a cruel and horrific monster who did
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: all of these awful, terrible things. Her body was allowed
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: to be interred on hallowed ground, which generally shouldn't have
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: been allowed if she was, you know, the demonic wench
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: they claimed she was. Then, over the years, through time
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: and history, Elgebied Battery's story just weaves its way, grabbing
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: bits of folklore in horror as it goes, whispers here,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: a little embellishment there, until she becomes known as the
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: horrific blood countess, perpetuated by patriarchal standards and abuse throughout
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the fucking centuries. Because, of course, being an independent, strong
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: woman at any point in history means that your reputation
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: will not be accepted or protected by the pale and
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: s dale male historians. And so the reputation or personhood
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: or any person who does not fall into the neat
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: little box of womanhood has to be tarnished.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Twisted, or destroyed.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: And so ends the story of Battery. Elje bit itched
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: And what did we learn today? The fact that a
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: level headed wife and mother was also a competent manager
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: of massive wealthy estates continued to be a powerful public
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: figure instead of retiring and mourning after her husband's untimely
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: demise was the downfall of this intelligent, strong wild woman
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: in seventeenth century Hungary. And also in addition, furthermore, we
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: are yet again reminded that the easiest thing to gain
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: and the hardest thing to lose is a reputation. Ilghebit
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Batherie was framed. So there we go. That is today's episode.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Don't forget.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: You can follow me on all of the socials. I'm
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: on Twitter or x or whatever it's called now, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I do have a website. I promised to update it soon.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: It's getting there. Remember if you want to come see
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: me my show, that's two weeks time ish under two
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: weeks time. I should probably write that out. I feel
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: like that's a good idea. Let's do that, and of
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: course vote for me and the listener's choice before I
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: leave as well. I am going to give you some recommendations.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: For watching. You'll need to go watch Practical Magic.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: It's a palate cleanser, it really is. For listening, I'm
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: going to go with the Buried Bones podcast. And for reading,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: let's head a classic with bram Stoker's Dracula now that
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: we have our options, I am going to wish you
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: good night Adios of in my friends Dubai