ČACHTICE, Slovakia — More than 400 years after her death, the truth about “the Blood Countess,” a Hungarian noblewoman believed to have been the most prolific serial killer of all time, remains elusive.

From her castle atop a craggy peak in what is now Čachtice, western Slovakia, Elizabeth Báthory is said to have tortured and killed up to 650 young women and girls, sparking horrific legends that she loved bathing in the blood of his victims in the belief it would help him retain his youth.

Rumors of Báthory’s cruelty spread throughout the Kingdom of Hungary in the early 17th century, and after a royal investigation, four of his servants were found guilty of murder and brutally executed. The Countess of Blood was arrested and confined within the walls of her castle until her death in 1614.

Báthory’s macabre history has captivated the imagination and invited speculation for centuries, giving rise to books, films, television series and local legends. But some scholars have questioned her true responsibility for the alleged savagery and suggest that, as a wealthy and powerful woman of late Renaissance Europe, she herself may have been its victim.

“Was Báthory a serial killer who tormented and tortured 650 young women for nothing other than his pleasure? asked Annouchka Bayley, a British author and academic who recently published a novel about the wealthy countess. “I am very convinced that this is, as we say in England, a catch-up job.”

Bayley, author of “The Blood Countess” and associate professor of arts and creativities at the University of Cambridge, says the popular narrative of Báthory as a serial killer relies on a “woman as monster” trope. which is not supported by the available evidence.

Instead of being a murderer, she claims, Bathory may have been a subversive figure who posed a threat to the kingdom’s power structure, especially since she had taught many young women to read and that she may have owned a printing press – radical acts during the period she lived.

“We must not forget that these were the years of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation when people were burned alive for their heretical beliefs. Printing presses, which had begun to flourish throughout Europe, gave people much greater access to information, which was considered very dangerous,” Bayley said.

“There’s enough for me to go, whoa, wait a minute.” Let’s stop here and investigate.

Báthory, born into an aristocratic family in 1560, married a wealthy Hungarian nobleman, Ferenc Nádasdy, in 1575, and the couple controlled significant wealth and land across the kingdom. Nádasdy was a prominent soldier and a key figure in regaining control of many Hungarian lands occupied by the Ottoman Empire.

But after Nádasdy’s sudden death in 1604, Báthory inherited his lands and wealth and commanded a “huge Jeff Bezos fortune”, according to Bayley.

It is this fortune and position of power that Bayley and other scholars have highlighted as a potential motive for other powerful figures of the time to seek to destroy Báthory and seize its riches.

Báthory’s refusal to remarry after her husband’s death and her activities in raising young women “would ring alarm bells on whoever is in power”, Bayley said.

Skepticism about Báthory’s guilt is not limited to academia: the issue can still be polarizing in the Slovak village of Čachtice, where the atrocities are believed to have taken place. Uncertainty over where Báthory is buried has also sparked speculation. She is believed to be buried in a crypt beneath the local church, but rumors circulated that her body was subsequently moved and the church did not allow excavations.

A local museum dedicated to the countess in Čachtice and groups of tourists and villagers who climb the rocky hills to the castle above the town attest to the power her legend still wields over the region.

But Ivan Pisca, a local farmer, said the power of Báthory’s story may diminish as generations pass.

“There are legends about Elizabeth Báthory, relatively bloodthirsty legends about the young girls she tortured and then killed,” he said. “Older people believe these stories, but younger people may know a little less.”

Bayley believes that popular culture, over the centuries, has been unduly fascinated by the most gruesome and violent narratives, and that history has often stigmatized powerful women.

With a “counter-narrative” of Báthory’s story, she said, she hopes to bring some justice to her and all those who history may have unfairly condemned.

“She deserves better, we all deserve better,” Bayley said. “Is justice for Báthory, 500 years later, ‘She didn’t do it’? Or is justice for Báthory actually the undoing of the monster trope for all women and men?