"At least in my view, there are too many doubts in this case. If we truly judge by the evidence, there's no way to conclude that Elizabeth is the mastermind behind the murders." After hearing Liang En's story, Joan of Arc said excitedly.
Due to her own history, Joan was always very sensitive to such framing and false accusations.
"If all the evidence we currently have is true, then we can basically determine that this is a premeditated frame-up aimed at removing Bathory's nephew, the leader of the Hungarian region."
Joan then talked about the doubts in the case, such as the important letter from Thurso stating that his thirty-odd subordinates found a dead girl, a dying girl, an injured woman, and a group of imprisoned people in Elizabeth's house.
These discoveries quickly became evidence of Elizabeth Bathory's abuse and murder of servants, leading to her being confined and subsequently tried.
However, according to other contemporaries, there were no such people in the castle. If one or two people said this, it might be to cover up the crime, but if many people said it, it was another matter.
It should be noted that the castle was not very large. If dozens of people were imprisoned, the whole castle would likely know. But according to contemporaneous notes, no one mentioned these prisoners.
More interestingly, many witnesses participated in the trial, with up to thirty-five witnesses summoned in a single day. However, no one could state the basic number of victims.
The four people accused as accomplices unanimously claimed that 36, 37, 50, and 51 people were killed. One witness even produced a list of victims as high as 650, falsely claiming it was written by Elizabeth herself.
Such insulting evidence was naturally not adopted, but this number later became the legend of the number of girls killed by Elizabeth.
More importantly, although those so-called accomplices were quickly executed after severe torture, Elizabeth Bathory, the main culprit, did not receive a guilty verdict, even though the Holy Roman Emperor repeatedly urged it to no avail.
Moreover, the legend that Elizabeth Bathory was later walled up in a room with only a small hole left for passing items was also false.
She was indeed confined in the castle, but as long as she didn't leave the castle, she could still walk around under guard surveillance, and the supply of various items matched her status, not as miserable as the legend suggests.
In addition to these historical records, the current site investigation also made Liang En and the others more convinced of Bathory's innocence. For example, the rumor that thirty to forty bodies were buried in the castle was definitely false.
"You saw it too; the castle is located on a mountain, and the water supply relies on the cistern and a deep well inside the castle. If bodies were buried underground, the water source would soon be contaminated, and half of the people in the castle would be lucky to survive."
Joan quickly voiced her observations from the scene. As an ancient soldier, she could judge many things through experience.
"Moreover, in a place like a castle, people come and go, and burying bodies would easily be discovered. Anyone with a normal mind wouldn't hide something they don't want to be found in the castle, which is time-consuming and laborious to hide."
"You're right, and there's another suspicious point in history." Liang En recalled the information he had seen earlier. "During the trial, no victims or their relatives appeared."
"You have to know, most people of that era only moved within a small radius centered around their hometown. They couldn't travel long distances for work like now, so the maids in the castle were likely from nearby."
"If only one or two people disappeared, it might not attract attention, but if dozens or even hundreds of girls went missing at once, it would definitely draw attention."
"Therefore, if something really happened, the families of those maids would definitely get the news and appear during the trial. So now I doubt the identity of those so-called witnesses."
"So this book, or rather this notebook, is very important." Joan said, looking at the black leather book. "I believe it should record the whole story of the matter."
Sure enough, after opening the book, it was full of Elizabeth Bathory's records of the trial. For her, having experienced so much in her life, she wasn't afraid of death, but hoped not to affect her own and her family's honor.
"Fortunately, everyone didn't talk too much before, or she would definitely not be happy knowing she was considered a bloodthirsty monster in later generations." After roughly flipping through the book, Liang En shook his head and said.
The later legends about Bathory mainly focused on two aspects: one was that the countess bathed in the blood of her victims to maintain her beauty or youth.
The other legend was that Elizabeth Bathory's uncle, Gabriel, was a cultist who fought invisible enemies with armor and shouted incomprehensible words; her aunt, Clara, was a lesbian who taught Elizabeth how to torture servants; and her brother, Stephen, was a pervert.
But these two statements were nonsense. At least the trial records only mentioned Bathory's abuse and murder of servants, with no connection to blood baths or cults.
Considering the conflict between the prime minister and Bathory, even a slight hint of this would have been used as evidence in the trial. So if the records didn't mention it, it didn't exist.
The existing legends of Elizabeth Bathory actually appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest appeared in 1729 in Laszlo Turoczi's "Tragic History," the first artistic creation about Elizabeth Bathory.
After the witnesses' confessions were made public in 1817, this legend was questioned. In John Paget's 1850 book "Hungary and Transylvania," he said there was no evidence for the blood bath.
Despite this, the legend was still used in various derivative works, partly because of its connection to the vampire legends of Transylvania, which was geographically close.
Some versions of the story condemned women's vanity, while others entertained or thrilled the audience. Laszlo Turoczi wrote his book because he opposed the Reformation.
As for the entire Bathory family being villains, it was related to the stigmatization of the defeated side in a struggle. The truth was Elizabeth didn't have an uncle named Gabriel.
She only had a distant nephew named Gabriel Bathory, who was also her brother's adopted son and had no biological children.
As for her aunt Clara, she was already elderly when Elizabeth was ten, and it was impossible for her to teach Elizabeth anything.
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