Why was Elizabeth not
What is curious about Elizabeth Báthory, is that she escaped proper punishment for her serious crimes. Although there has been evidence of complaints of her conduct with her servants in letters between 1602 and 1604 from Lutheran minister István Magyari complaining about atrocities both publicly and with the court in Vienna, after rumours about missing young women in the area spread, proper investigations into Elizabeth's activities began only in 1610. This can be attributed to Elizabeth's immense local power as a mistress and landowner of a vast estate that made it difficult for anyone but an enormously influential person to challenge her. Some claim that she was investigated not because of her crimes but because of the finances involved with her family. The official testimony of Elizabeth Báthory's murders, which still remain in Hungarian archives, is both questionable and convicting in nature. On the 29th December, the Habsburg Empire's representative and Viceroy of Hungary, Count George Thurzo conducted a raid on Countess Báthory in her property, Csejte Castle (now in modern day Slovakia). Inside, there were already dead victims and some imprisoned, supposedly awaiting death. He immediately took Elizabeth away and gathered the household servants for questioning and summoned people from the nearby villages. He showed his audience, a mixture of shopkeepers, shepherds, scullery maids and so forth, a collection of corpses discovered on Elizabeth's estate.
Although torture of servants was common in sixteenth century Hungary, the nature and quantity of Elizabeth's crimes were truly shocking to this audience. Count George Thurzo promised the people that "he had decided there and then to pass sentence on the perpetrator of these outrages against the female sex" (Thorpe) and put her under house arrest.
These testimonies are questionable because they were most likely culled from acts of torture inflicted on Báthory's own accomplices. But the fact that there even were trials regarding Bathory's murders lends some support to the stories surrounding the woman. From the testimonies, the number 650 was settled upon as her victim count with one witness testified that Bathory kept a registry of her crimes (numbering 650). Elizabeth did not admit to the crimes but she was confined to a small, walled in room in her castle with just enough space for air and only a small opening to provide food allowed. She spent the remaining four years of her life there, until she was found dead on the floor in 1614.
None of this testimony amounted to a trial for Báthory. There are three reasons that she was not put to death along with her accomplices. The first was that Hungarian laws forbade she be put to trial because of her noble standing. The aristocracy held all the power in Hungary and there was little scope for effective peasant resistance or participation at any level. A legal code was drawn up in 1541 called the Tripartitum which further supported noble dominance and perpetual serfdom and this feudal system remained more or less unchanged until 1848. Social status was incredibly important in seventeenth century Hungary; even an act of rebellion against a legitimate ruler would be treated differently if the rebels were part of the nobility. To this end, the Hungarian laws did not allow for a person of Elizabeth's social standing to be put to death. Secondly, there is some evidence that the king wanted to avoid scandal and thought that punishing Elizabeth properly would cause more of an uproar than if she were to 'disappear'. And thirdly there was little to gain from executing Elizabeth for the king. The king had more to lose than gain executing Elizabeth.
It seems bewildering to a modern person that Bathory could get away with her crimes so with such relatively light punishment but the nature of the Hungary did not encourage easy communication meant that the king’s failure to punish Elizabeth appropriately was able to be ‘swept under the rug’. Of course tales of Elizabeth’s life never stopped from being passed on. Her bloody life, whether exaggerated or factual, had come to an end and Elizabeth entered the realm of legend.