Who were the real Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory?

by Ilovepampoovey

With everything that is floating around in popular culture regarding these two figures it becomes, if not hard, then at the very least tedious to sort through the falsehoods and sensationalism to find out the empirical truth. It becomes even more difficult when the figure belongs to a different language sphere. Basically, my question is, what are some good, scholarly, reputable English language sources on Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory? Preferably something peer-reviewed or at leased published by a trustworthy scholar. I'd like to know if Vlad and Elizabeth were really as terrible as they were reported to be or whether they were much more complex and nuanced than previously thought. Thank you.

orangewombat

Since you're interested in the complexity and nuance of Báthory's story, I can recommend my very long AH biography & analysis of Báthory's case, a shorter piece on why Báthory was definitely not innocent, or my answer to the question "why wasn't Báthory caught sooner?"

I can also help you with sources. I will list them below on a “traffic light” scale: green means go, yellow means be careful, red means stop.

“Green light:” well-researched, credible, readable sources

Bledsaw, Rachel L. No Blood in the Water: The Legal and Gender Conspiracies Against Countess Elizabeth Báthory in Historical Context in “Theses and Dissertations 135,” Illinois State University, 2014.

  • This source is extremely thoughtful, credible, and provides a ton of really helpful context for Hungary in the late 1500s. If I could recommend anyone to read only one thing about Báthory, it would be this thesis. Unfortunately (?), Bledsaw's excellent analysis/criticism relies on but doesn't rehash Countess Dracula by Tony Thorne and Infamous Lady by Kimberly Craft. Therefore, you kinda have to read Thorne & Craft first to fully appreciate how revelatory Bledsaw's thesis is.

Craft, Kimberly L. The Private Letters of Countess Erzsebet Báthory. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (self-published), 2011.

  • Craft is a source you should be skeptical of (see my discussion below in the “yellow” lights). This source, however, is a straight translation of Hungarian primary sources into English, with less analysis or theorizing. It's nearly 150 pages from the Countess herself! In many ways, that makes this the most important source of all. I will warn you, though: her letters don't contain anything about the deaths; it's mainly orders for pantry staples & property transfers. You have to commit to going beyond the macabre events & really getting to know this lady.

Kord, Susanne. “Chapter 3: Bloodbaths: the case of Elizabeth Báthory” in Murderesses in German Writing 1720-1860: Heroines of Horror. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  • Kord is one of the few sources who cites primary sources and whose secondary analysis is thoughtful and reasonable. Highly recommend.
  • If you'd like me to DM you a PDF copy of this chapter, let me know.

Miller, Elizabeth. “Bram Stoker, Elizabeth Báthory and Dracula” in Dracula – Sense and Nonsense. Desert Island Books, 2006.

  • Prof. Miller is the premier scholar on Dracula (the book by Bram Stoker), and she has an entire chapter in this book annihilating McNally's suggestion that Báthory inspired Stoker's fictional vampire. I have listed McNally's work in the "red" sources below.

Thorne, Tony. Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of Elisabeth Báthory, the Blood Countess. Bloomsbury Pub Ltd., 1997.

  • Another one of the first scholars to investigate primary sources from the early 1600s. Most of his theories and analysis are reasonable and thoughtful. Highly recommend.

“Yellow light:” somewhat useful, somewhat flawed sources

Craft, Kimberly L. Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsebet Báthory. 2nd ed., CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (self-published), 2014.

  • Craft is a somewhat helpful, but somewhat awful, source. She was one of the first people to dig into Hungarian-language primary sources and translate them into English. She gets points from me because she was perhaps the first person to shut down the idea that Báthory literally bathed in the blood of virgins. Craft calls out that prurient apocrypha for the misogyny it is. Conversely, Craft doesn't cite any sources in Infamous Lady, which is an astonishing hubris for a work of alleged history. I only trust Craft to the extent her research agrees with other Báthory biographies, real Hungarian history textbooks, or reasonable sense.

“Red light:” pseudo-history, pseudoscience, conjecture, misinformation

These sources are very interesting from a historiographical perspective (historiography is the history of how people wrote about a subject, in this case Elisabeth Báthory), but they are not useful for a factual understanding of Báthory's life or crimes.

Baring-Gould, Sabine. The Book of Were-Wolves: Being an Account of Terrible Superstition. Smith, Elder, & Co., 1865. See pages 138-139.

McNally, Raymond. Dracula Was A Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania. McGraw-Hill, 1987.

Paget, John. Hungary and Transylvania: With Remarks on Their Condition, Social, Political, and Economical. 1839, pp. 68-69.

Penrose, Valentine. La Comtesse Sanglante : Erzsebet Báthory. Gallimard, 1984. In French. Translated into English as The Bloody Countess: Atrocities of Erzsebet Báthory. Translated by Alexander Trocchi, 2nd ed., Sun Vision Press, 2012.

von Elsberg, R. A. Elisabeth Báthory. (Die Blutgräfin) Ein sitten-und charakterbild. S. Schottlaender Breslau, 1904. In German; no English translation available.