h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Though both sides of the debate are adamant...either she was politically/religiously/economically elimated or her Ladyship truly believed that bathing in virgin's blood had relevant and proven effects, I believe the truth lies somewhere in between. Her inventiveness with torture and all it's implements (including my favorite: the iron virgin) truly spoke more than anything as to her true nature. The obsession with only nubile young girls...virgins...also show her fascination with the ages old believe in the magical powers of blood. Add the obvious witchcraft along with the need to have victims at her beckon call at all her estates, and her Ladyship's insistance that only "blue blood" would prevent her aging after countless baths in "peasant blood" did nothing.
In all...Erzsebet had it all: beauty, money, power, prestige, intelligence....with all the sexual excess and sadism thrown in for complexity. It was the family's attempt to subvert the truth and cover up the infamy that lead to the veil of mystery surrounding the awful truth.

Apparently you, as well as many others here, have little interest in either truth or justice.

The blood bathing story is almost for sure false. Apparently it was NOT mentioned in the trial documentation and only appeared about 1720 in a book by a Jesuit priest, condemning the horrible Protestant Bathory. My guess is that you can't take that to the bank as the truth.

Bathing in medieval europe was just being restarted, after the fall of the Romans. Generally bathing was considered dangerous, so I doubt that she, or any of these folks, bathed in water, much less blood which would cause numerous problems, if you think about it.

Why are you so quick to discount the "blood baths"? You and the director of "BATHORY" seem to be of the same idea that her Ladyship was politically assasinated and the charges trumped up...right? I concurr that a large part of her condemnation was due to the crown's debt to her, but Thurzo's actions scream of a need to protect the family name at all costs. Thurzo's original plan to have her sequestered at a nunnery was foiled by Mathius II and so plans had to be changed in a hurry. Already guilty of mass murder ("inhuman cruelty" was the final charge) the more bizzare facts had to omitted or witchcraft would surely have been added and execution inevitable. Paul's name and that of the whole Bathory/Nadasdy clan had to be salvaged, and perpetual imprisonment the only solution.
Why did Erzsebet begin to kill the girls of the lesser Nobility? Were there simply none left?...or did the advise of Majorova to bathe in "blue blood" make more sense? Her Ladyship DID have blood showers when she sat beneath the great spiked metal orb and her victim's screams...and biting bits of flesh does include some blood injestion, which gave rise to the vampire/werewolf legends regarding the Countess. It is all parts of the fascinating mystery that was Erzsebet Bathory Nadasdy.