Thursday, February 21, 2013

Letters and Infamous Ladies in a Dandelion Garden


The Private Letters of Erzebet Báthory by Kimberly Craft

 

Infamous Lady by Kimberly Craft

 

Dandelions in the Garden by Charlie Courtland

 

All three of these books are about the woman who has gone down in history as Countess Dracula or The Blood Countess.  They join a host of modern books on the subject, including the fiction work for young adults which I have just finished writing.

 

The first is classed as a memoir, and like the second, is written by attorney. Kim Craft who has created a well done and informative website on Erzebet, the infamous lady herself, at InfamousLady.com.  She has the blessing of alleged ancestor Denis Bathory, who has written an opera about Erzebet.  These are interesting sources indeed.

 

The third is a novel, and like many, seeks to explain the nature of Erzebet’s alleged crimes.

 

I will take them in the order shown here.

 

The Letters are a series of novels written by Erzebet, and in some cases, to her, by insiders to her Court, her family, a few friends, and some who later turned into her accusers.  What strikes me most is that without fail, this woman who is called one of the first female serial killers, vampire, werewolf, monster, witch, deviant, mad virago, is reoccupied with the business of running her more than 20 estates, down to how many containers of grain are needed to feed her various households.  She is all business, very Calvinist in how she resents herself, concerned with her children’s health, and polite and very formal, even when she is frightened or angry. She is an astute businesswoman and responsible.  She takes account for everything that goes on in her domain, shows awareness of Hapsburg politics, of debts owed her, of money she must shell out, and of the wars with the Turks and others who constantly threaten her wealth and well-being.

 

She complains of her eyes hurting, and headaches.  She worries for her husband, and worries that her servants will not have enough to eat.  She notes holidays and social occasions.

 

We know she traveled to all her estates throughout the year, and is distressed when war and bad letters testamentary don't let her enter one of them.  We read her last will and testament, written after warnings by a widowed cousin that the Catholic officials of her region will try to divest her, a lonely widow, of her wealth.  She leaves everything but her bridal gown to her children as a result.

 

Kraft accepts that Erzebet tortured and killed young girls, and that she may have orchestrated in horrific orgies encouraged by her servants and confidantes, but asserts that there was virtually no evidence against her and that in a modern court of law; she would never have been convicted.

 

In both books, Kraft stresses that Thurzo, her once admirer, friend, and protect, turned against her and had letters sentencing and convicting her signed, sealed, and delivered even before her arrest.

 

I agree Erzebet would have never have been convicted, but I question now if she ever committed any crime, at least by the standards of the brutal times in which she lived. Given the amount of time she had to devote to her family and to running her estates, and to her position as wife of a national hero, her age, and the ailments that plagued her, I find it hard to believe she had to time for any “recreation,” let alone violent sex orgies.

 

Kraft points out only a handful of her accusers could link her to the deaths occurring at her castle, and no one actually sees her do much of anything.  So much associated with her is mere myth, the baths in blood, the blood drinking, the 650 victims, the Iron Maiden, event he story of the man sewn in a horse, that one has to wonder what really took lace.

 

What a great story at that historical lace and time, a mere 80 years give or take from our own Salem Witch trials, to divest a widow of her estates and wealth, especially one as outspoken, humorless, and rigid as Erzebet.  Haughty and unlikable she may well have been.  Murderer?  I doubt it.

 

One interesting thing is that she is said to have written on the walls of her prison when she had no more parchment and writing implements.  Anne Rice wrote on her wall words that inspired her, and I’ve heard of others.  I tend to stick things onto my walls when I’m working.  Do all writers?

 

Dandelions is a good story, and a romance about Erzebet and Armara Drugeth, a lady in waiting and her closest confidante.  Much is speculation, but it is not grounded in Erzebet’s time.  They are all 21st c. individuals in 21st c. situations.  They talk like they are next door, and the scene with Armara in the café could be in a Starbuck’s.  The author needs to study the era and the language, and stick to the original names, Ferenc, not Francis, Erzebet, not Elizabeth.

 

I’m not sure the audience, but the interesting thing is that this book also written as a memoir, tries very much to humanize Erzebet as well.

 

Of note:  Erzebet is mentioned in the book Creepy Ass Dolls as a bisque doll.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: I will be Back; Finishing a Book

Dr. E's Doll Museum Blog: I will be Back; Finishing a Book: So, I will return, as my Gen. Macarthur doll might say. LOL!. More musings, and then a very brief hiatus. The competition factor involved ...

Actual Facts c. Myth from a Scholarly book about Erzebet

From, “Bloodbaths: The Case of Elizabeth Báthory” in Kord, Susanne. Murderesses in German Writing: Heroines of Horror. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009: · Gyorgy Thurzó, Palatine of Hungary, the Hapsburg Loving King Matthias II of Hungary and the rest of the Hapsburgs had their own reasons for getting rid of Erzebet (59). · Since the death of Erzebet’s husband, “the court of Vienna had owed her the massive sum of 17,408 Gulden, a debt that she had unsuccessfully tried to collect for six years” (59). · The Vienna Court’s Debt would be extinguished if Erzebet were convicted of a crime. · Two weeks after Erzebet’s husband, Ferenc Nádasdy died, his mother, her mother-in-law, wrote Erzebet “warning her that a law was being proposed that would strip all non-Catholics-Báthory had converted to Lutheranism . . . of their possessions”(Ursula Nádasdy to Elizabeth [Erzebet] Báthory, 18 January 1604, cited in Kord 59). · “[O]ther rich widows in seventeenth century Hungary . . . were immediately after their husband’s deaths, accused of witchcraft and deposed, their lands and assets falling to their accusers” Thorne, Countess Dracula 223.246 discussed in Kord 60). · In 1604, Erzebet owned “three castles in today’s Austria, seven in today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia, three in today’s Romania and eight in today’s Hungary” (59) · “She may well have been the richest woman in her country” (59) · “Báthory was involved in anti-Hapsburg politics” (59) · Thurzó wanted to put a stop to political activities of Erzebet’s cousin, Gábor Báthory, “was involved in a plot to topple King Matthias and expand Transylvania to absorb Hapsburg lands (McNally, Dracula was a Woman 72 quoted in Kord 59). · More than three months before the official accusations against her, in September 1610, Erzebet made a will that divested her of everything, instead, leaving everything to her son and others (Kord 61). · King Matthias II gave up his attempts to drag Erzebet before an official tribunal after the will was written, and after the Hungarian Parliament convinced him that “there was no financial benefit to the crown” in doing so because Erzebet literally owned no possessions, not personal, not reality (60). · The fact alone that the only written sources documenting Báthory’s guilt were authored by those who had set out to destroy her and who stood to profit form her downfall should make us more suspicious that historians have tended to be” (61). · In the end, the “hundreds” of witnesses assembled by her enemies, which included her sons in law, did not have much to say, and the “sheer quantity of witnesses” should “not blind us to the dubious quality of their testimony” (Kord 60).

Monday, February 4, 2013

Infamous Lady

Reading this excellent work by K. Craft and continuing to research Erzebet. More coming soon, including some facts and statistics about the fallacies associated with her and her case. Meanwhile, consider and compare her life to that of Catherine The Great of Russia, who lived roughly 100 years later. I also recommend Antonia Fraser's The Warrior Queens for thos who want to address the issue of women in combat, as military commanders, and as ruthless leaders.