“Your vanity will be your undoing!” ~ Darvulia

Starring: Julie Delpy, Daniel Bruhl, William Hurt, and Sebastian Blomberg.

Released in 2009

The Countess details the life of Erzsébet Báthory, a renowned Hungarian Countess who lived during the Sixteenth century.

Erzsébet, played by Julie Delpy(Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, 2 Days in Paris) in her third directorial attempt, was born into Hungarian nobility in 1560. The tale is told through the eyes of her former lover, István Thurzó, played by the talented Daniel Brühl.

The story takes us briefly through Erzsébet’s harsh childhood and loveless marriage. There is a graphic scene involving her peasant lover at the beginning of the film that sets the tone for the rest of the movie: hard, cruel, and cold. We get glimpses of her strange and dark thoughts, and how her passions can get her into trouble.

Erzsébet grows up to be a beautiful and powerful woman and bears her husband three children. He returns from war with the Turks and succumbs to a sudden illness. Left with her children, Erzsébet moves to Čachtice castle. The montage of scenes, which ends with the death of her husband, tell us that Erzsébet Báthory has grown up in a world that is both privileged and wealthy, but also brutal and devious. The Erzsébet that emerges for us is an intelligent woman who is able to play in the rough and tumble game of Hungarian politics.

There, she meets the son of her cousin Count György Thurzó, played by William Hurt (A History of Violence, Syriana, Robin Hood), István Thurzó. She in 20 years his senior but they fall madly in love and begin an affair. Count György asks for her hand in marriage and she rebuffs him. When he finds out later than she is having an affair with his son, he decides to take revenge. It’s here that the story is told from a different perspective. Erzsébet Báthory’s tale usually makes her out to be a vain, vicious, serial killer, obsessed with youth. She IS all these things but what the movie does brilliantly is building sympathy for her. It plants the seeds of doubt: is she is the victim of betrayal for refusing two men who clamoured for her affections; her cousin, Count György and the wicked and sadistic Count Dominic Vizakna, played by Sebastian Blomberg (The Coming Days, Who If Not us?).

Erzsébet is heartbroken when István breaks off their love affair. She doesn’t realise that it was his jealous father’s doing and believes that it is her age that caused him to leave. After accidentally being splashed with blood when she strikes a servant girl, she mistakenly thinks smearing it on her skin makes her look younger. Everyone but Darvulia sees the “miraculous” changes to her skin. She begins drawing blood from virgin serving girls in the nearby village. The bodies pile up rather quickly and suspicions arise when too many girls go missing. Erzsébet moves onto virgin noble women believing their blood is even more pure because of their lineage. At this point, István is sent out to investigate Erzsébet by his father because he doesn’t want to believe Erzsébet is the evil person people have claimed she is and he is the only one who can get close to her.

Erzsébet ‘s dilemma is one that many people can relate to – the fear of getting old. Although those around her see her as beautiful, Erzsébet  only sees the signs of aging and worries that she will no longer be attractive. At one point she says, “God is it wrong to stay beautiful and young?” This becomes her deepest desire, and what ultimately pushes her into madness.  Her panic at seeing herself, in her own words, “rotting”, and her belief that the blood of young virgins will make her appear youthful, begins the gruesome chain of events.

Blomberg does a fantastic job as the dark, and sinister Count Vizakna. His family suffers from a curious condition where they cannot go out into the sun giving as nod to the vampire element of this story. Vizakna enjoys pain and encourages Erzsébet to explore this side of her. They embark on a sadomasochistic relationship where he allows her to whip nd strangle him during sex. As her relationship to Vizakna grows deeper, she also spirals further down into murder.  Both Vizakna and György betray her by altering circumstances to make Erzsébet appear guilty.

“There is beauty in letting time do its duty” ~ Darvulia

Another equally strong character is Erzsébet’s witch confidante, Darvulia. She counsels Erzsébet away from the madness of her vanity and tries to warn her about Vizakna but Erzsébet doesn’t listen. Darvulia’s character is also interesting because she is portrayed (albeit quietly) as a lesbian. At one point, after Darvulia admonishes Erzsébet, the Countess threatens her as a means of insuring her silence by saying that Darvulia is a virgin since she has only bedded women. Darvulia, not wanting to meet the same fate as the serving women, keeps her mouth shut.

“Perhaps if her heart had not been broken she would not have become who she is.” ~ István

István rekindles their romance but sadly, finds evidence of her crimes, i.e., her crypt, and the cage used to extract blood. In the end, he is there to see punishment exacted when Erzsébet is immured in her room. She has only a few small holes for sunlight and a sliding flap for her food while her peasant accomplices meet a much harsher fate.

While the movie does not portray her as a saint – far from it, it does make a good case for casting some doubt. Was she a victim of the scorned love of Vizakna? Was she betrayed so that King Matthias II could avoid repayment of his massive debt for her help in his war efforts against the Turks? Did her cousin contrive to plot against her for rebuffing his affections? All of these ideas are posited by István in his retelling of this horrific tale.  She is not absolved of her actions but she is cast in a more sympathetic light where you can see the circumstances that added up to cause her to become one of the most feared serial killers of the sixteenth century.

We didn’t go into this movie with high expectations so we were very pleased to have enjoyed it as much as I did. It has a rather languid pace and, with the exception of Hurt, it is not full of big budget Hollywood actors. Daniel Brühl does a wonderful job as the naïve and adoring István, and the movie is beautifully filmed. The dialogue is witty and makes up for what the movie is lacking in pacing and action.

It is brutal, but not in a scary, overtly gory, way. There are some stomach turning moments and seeing as Erzsébet Báthory is known for having bathed in the blood of virgins – if blood makes you squeamish, then this is not the movie for you!

Delpy does an incredible job playing Erzsébet and portraying her in a compassionate light while directing a story that was reasonably faithful to the Báthory legend. This movie could have portrayed Erzsébet  Báthory either as a sadistic villain, or as innocent dupe. Julie Delpy has created a complex character who has both traits, but is also much more. We get to see a woman who is deeply conflicted and traumatized with who she is becoming, but the movie also shows her vanity and cruelty. The Countess is both the perpetrator and the victim, and Delpy gives a great performance that gives us an Erzsébet  Báthory who is fighting her own inner struggle, one that in end she is bound to lose.

Two of the new letters shed new light on the extent of the author’s interactions with the English aristocracy and in one letter he even signs his name ‘Francis Voltaire’ – something he has never before been recorded as doing.

The letters have been edited by Professor Nicholas Cronk, director of Oxford University’s Voltaire Foundation and lecturer in the Medieval and Modern Languages Faculty, and are being made available online in the Bodleian Library’s Electronic Enlightenment project.

Professor Cronk said: ‘Voltaire spent two important but relatively undocumented years in England in his early thirties at a time when he was best known as a poet – he arrived with only a recommendation from the British Ambassador to Paris. While here, he was exposed to ideas of English writers and later took empiricism back to the Continent where it became the basis for the Enlightenment. These newly-discovered letters are therefore very interesting because they show how Voltaire’s close interaction with the English aristocracy exposed him to Enlightenment ideas and help us to piece together the nature of those interactions.’

One letter is from Voltaire to Lord Bathurst, a patron of the arts who often hosted great English thinkers at his manor, Richings, including Alexander Pope who wrote much of his translation of Homer there. In this letter Voltaire thanks Bathurst for ‘the freedom of your house and the many liberties I enjoyed in that fine library’. ‘This shows us one way in which Voltaire would have been exposed to so much of Shakespeare, Newton, Locke, Swift, Pope and others – both by reading their books in the library at Richings and perhaps even by meeting contemporary English thinkers,’ Professor Cronk explained.

In another letter, Voltaire writes to the Treasury to confirm receipt of a £200 grant from George II and signs his name ‘Francis Voltaire’. Professor Cronk said: ‘This is interesting in itself – the name ‘Voltaire’ was an invention (he was born ‘Francois Arouet’) so to call himself ‘Francis’ is an English invention of his original invention. But the letter’s significance lies in the fact that this grant probably came to Voltaire at the request of Queen Caroline, a protector of the arts, which reinforces just how closely Voltaire had integrated himself into the English aristocracy in such a short time.’

Professor Cronk came across the new letters during the course of his archival research – 11 were found in the New York Public Library, whose former president Paul LeClerc is himself a Voltaire scholar; two were found in the University of Morgan library and one in the library at the University of Columbia.

Professor Cronk added: ‘Voltaire came to England as a relatively unknown poet with only a recommendation from the British ambassador to Paris, so to make the aristocratic connections that he did shows him to be a brilliant social climber. Sarkozy referred to the stay when during his pre-election campaign he told French businessman in England that they were following in Voltaire’s footsteps so it is exciting to be able to add to the existing knowledge of this short but important visit.’

These letters have been put on the Bodleian Library’s Electronic Enlightenment website, which now houses the most complete collection of Voltaire’s works and correspondence, along with commentary by academics and other digital resources. This is expected to open up the study of Voltaire, allowing interested members to see his original text for themselves without having to travel to the relevant library, and the high-resolution imaging that is possible has already solved one riddle about Voltaire. Professor Cronk explained: ‘There is one famous letter from Voltaire addressing Alexander Pope as ‘Master Pope’ which we had previously been unable to date. Using the digital archive, which shows every page rather than missing some while photocopying, a post office stamp on the reverse side of the letter reveals this letter to be from October 7 1727.

More than 20,000 letters of Voltaire are known about and Professor Cronk estimates that there must be as many still in existence.

The Voltaire Foundation is carrying out a fifty year project to produce the definitive scholarly edition of Voltaire’s complete writings and the project is estimated for completion in 2018.

Source: University of Oxford

Seeking the Supernatural: The Exorcisms of John Darrell and the Formation of an Orthodox Identity in Early Modern England

 Mollmann, Bradley J. 

Master of Arts, Department of History, Miami University (2008)

Abstract

In the 1590‘s a puritan minister named John Darrell performed a series of miraculous exorcisms in the English midlands. His actions were highly controversial, sparking a national debate over the nature of demonic possession and the appropriate methods of healing. Darrell believed that he had an orthodox approach to divine powers, but he was met with strong opposition. The Bishop of London, Richard Bancroft, thought that Darrell‘s exorcisms were an attempt to win converts to the puritan cause. Both sides worked feverishly to defend their ideas. They published multiple pamphlets, articulating their beliefs for or against the possibility of demonic possession. This thesis will examine these pamphlets in an attempt to ascertain the ways in which people understood the phenomena. It will focus on the question of identity, and John Darrell‘s attempt to legitimize his role as an exorcist within the Church of England.

Sometimes it takes a controversial event to bring mounting tensions into the open. Such was the case in the 1590‘s, when a minister named John Darrell performed a series of exorcisms in the English Midlands. His actions, and the ensuing controversy over their veracity, mark a shift in the way English people thought about themselves and their relationship to the divine. The events reveal a time when people began to question their basic assumptions about the world, and started to integrate a range of ideas to form new systems of belief. The various interpretations of Darrell‘s exorcisms show a point of convergence between purely religious explanations for events and an emerging scientific discourse that sought medical and naturalistic explanations. They reveal a fluid environment in which no single ideology or institution could accommodate all the emerging religious ideas, allowing individuals to combine ideas to form new identities. At the same time, the controversy over Darrell‘s exorcisms exemplify the ways in which various powerful entities attempted to manipulate the ―truth‖ of the events in order to perpetuate and enhance their ideological control.

Click here to read this thesis from Miami University

Warning, Familiarity and Ridicule: Tracing the Theatrical Representation of the Witch in Early Modern England

Porterfield, Melissa Rynn

Master of Arts, Miami University, Theatre, (2005)

Abstract

This work traces the theatrical representation of the witch on the Early Modern English stage. I examine the ways in which the witch was constructed as a binary opposite against which dominant society could define itself. This work provides close readings of three representative plays from the era: Macbeth, The Witch of Edmonton, and The Witches of Edmonton. I also investigate the significance of the personal involvement of King James I in real-life witch trials. This work breaks the progression of the witch into three stages – fear, familiarity, and ridicule – each of which served to allay the anxieties of dominant culture. Situating the texts within the specific historical cosmology of their original productions, I suggest one possible mapping of the intersections of the intersections of gender, class, nation, politics, and economics which they depict.

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries saw a dramatic rise in witchcraft prosecution across Western Europe. In England, this witch-mania reached its historical height near the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, roughly from 1580 to 1600; that is to say, the greatest number of recorded cases of witchcraft prosecutions and executions occurred during this relatively small period of time, in comparison to the long- running pervasiveness of witchcraft prosecutions in the rest of Europe (Macfarlane 26-28). Yet despite these historical circumstances, the cultural witch-craze in England did not reach its true height until later, primarily during the reign of King James. This social fad manifested itself in a number of ways, including its enormous popularity as a subject for theatre of the day. Montague Summers chronicles the appearance of witches in plays from 1500-1800 and counts twenty-four plays depicting accused witches performed on the English stage from approximately 1595-1635 – more than twice that of the combined total remaining witchcraft plays he discusses. These productions capitalized on the supernatural aspects of witchcraft and were performed with great frequency throughout both the Jacobean and Carolinian eras, until the closing of the theatres in London in 1642.

Click here to read this thesis from Miami University

English Assimilation and Invasion From Outside the Empire: Problems of the Outsider in England in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Moore, Jeffrey Salem

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, English, December (2010)

Abstract

Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula introduces a number of issues related to immigration, immigrants, and contact between native born Britons and the non-English. Stoker uses a number of familiar genres and characters to give readers a sense of what is acceptably English, and challenges the perceptions of what makes someone English through Count Dracula, who assimilates Englishness in order to infiltrate and undermine English society. In doing so, Stoker points out xenophobic attitudes among the English by bringing someone from outside the British Empire into England and showing them to be capable of being more English than the English.

Since its publication in 1897, Bram Stoker’s vampire novel, Dracula, has fascinated and frightened people. The story of a mysterious and powerful vampire who comes to London, England, and preys on unsuspecting women has inspired more adaptations and revisions than Stoker likely could have imagined. Part of the continued popularity of Dracula would seem to be the ease with which the story can be adapted and used to reflect the fears and concerns of contemporary society. Depending on the time and place, Count Dracula can be seen as a reflection of rampant sexuality, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the dangers of class conflict, or any number of other interpretations.

Click here to read this thesis from the University of Dayton

Constructions of Infanticide in Early Modern England: Female Deviance During Demographic Crisis

Copeland, Sarah Shippy

Master of Arts, Ohio State University, History, (2008)

Abstract

Infanticide was rare in early modern England, yet it occupied a prominent position in English culture. Ambiguities surrounding the birth and death of an infant permitted multiple interpretations of suspicious evidence. At times communities, the justice system, and the law formed competing narratives of birth and death. Narratives circulating in popular print promoted yet another interpretation of suspicious events. This essay explores narratives of infanticide, real and imagined, official and unofficial, in order to understand why the English were so preoccupied by infanticide. What was at stake? As communities dealt sympathetically with many suspected murderers, popular print demonized them. We can better understand the competing constructions of infanticide by placing them in the context of the demographic crisis of the seventeenth century. Communities and the justice system had to cope with real people with real problems. Popular print provided an outlet for administering justice that appeased divine wrath.

Click here to read this thesis from Ohio State University

Chinoiserie: Revisiting England’s Eighteenth-Century Fantasy of the East

Zuo, Julie Qun

MS ARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture, (2004)

Abstract

The social and political implication of Chinoiserie, and its potential relationship with Colonialism, have not been thoroughly studied by historians in recent decades, as it has generally been dismissed as merely a stylistic novelty. In contrast, the Gothic Revival has been proven to be a contributor to Modernism and scholarly exploration of it has continued. Recent research has shown that patrons employed Gothic Revival in art and architecture for political and social reasons in eighteenth-century England. The aims of this thesis are to examine Chinoiserie beyond the stylistic meaning through a comparison with the contemporary Gothic style, and to discover a new interpretation of eighteenth-century British Chinoiserie phenomenon in relationship to nineteenth-century European Colonialism. Literary works on Chinoiserie, Gothic Revival, Picturesque and Orientalism indicate that it is an extraordinary phenomenon that in the eighteenth-century England, Chinoiserie, Gothic Revival and many other historical revival styles existed simultaneously. However, Chinoiserie never gained entire public acceptance, while the Gothic style developed into the major English domestic style of the nineteenth-century. Two case studies are examined: “Chinese Chippendale” furniture of the 1750’s and 1760’s, and the Chinese Room at Claydon House (1757-1771), in Buckinghamshire, England. In the first case study, “Chinese Chippendale” furniture is considered. This includes an exploration of Thomas Chippendale’s inspiration, the changes of the Chinese style in the three editions of Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director (1754, 1755, and 1762), an investigation of his commissions, and an inquiry into its stylistic and cultural meanings. In the second case study, the history of the Verney family and Claydon House in England is explored. The 2nd Earl Verney (1712-1791)’s intentions of rebuilding Claydon House are also investigated, revealing definite social and political implications, which are similar to those of the contemporary Gothic Revival. Thus, Claydon served as a cipher for the larger cultural failure of the Chinoiserie movement. Chinoiserie, as well as Gothic Revival, was employed by the Whigs for political reasons. The Chinoiserie phenomenon was explored as an alternative “other” for political ends in later European Colonialism.

Click here to read this thesis from the University of Cincinnati

Musicians and Intelligence Operations, 1570-1612:  Politics, Surveillance, and Patronage in the Late Tudor and Early Stuart Years

Chiasson-Taylor,Rachelle A.M., (Schulich School of Music McGill University, Montreal)

Doctor of Philosophy (Musicology), McGill University (2006)

Abstract

The problem of musicians’ involvement in intelligence operations during the late Tudor and early Stuart years has to date remained relatively unexplored. There is convincing evidence, however, that artists from different disciplines were particularly targeted for recruitment in intelligence operations, designed by Elizabeth I’s councillors, Willam Cecil, Lord Burghley and Francis Walsingham, to infiltrate and disable Catholic oppositional networks on the Continent and in England in the aftermath of the Elizabethan settlement on religion.

The Scottish revolt that preceded the arrival of Mary, Queen of Scots in England (1568), the Northern Rising of Catholic Earls (end of 1569), the excommunication of Elizabeth I (1570), and the so-called “Ridolfi” plot to assassinate Elizabeth and raise the Queen of Scots to the English throne (uncovered in 1571) combined to create a large-scale political crisis that galvanized the fledgling intelligence operations, dubbed by scholars as the first “modern” secret service.

Click here to read thesis from McGill University

The City of York in the time of Henry VIII

Lewycky, Nadine

The University of York, Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (2010)

Abstract

The traditional thesis regarding demography was that towns experienced a decline in both wealth and population in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, for example, as was the case in York. However, other towns were prospering at their expense. Halifax and Wakefield in the West Riding were experiencing growth in the textile industry, while Newcastle and Hull were exporting cloth to the continent, again at the expense of York, which lost out on both manufacturing and mercantile activities. Scholars have now revised their interpretation of the condition of early modern towns to be regional phenomena – that is, economic prosperity or decline was experienced by a town and its surrounding countryside, rather than as a town versus rural divide.

The demography and social structure in England was also in flux in this period. Towns were either growing or shrinking in size depending on their location and their economic situation. By the Elizabethan period, even those towns that had been experiencing a decline in population under Henry VIII were beginning to recover, if not surpass their previous levels. The rise of mercantile activity in the towns also had an impact on the composition of the social structure – what historians have traditionally referred to as ‘the rise of the middle class’. Merchants and professionals, such as lawyers, became wealthier and more numerous and established themselves in the social hierarchy by purchasing land and estates, which remained the most important characteristic for determining social status and accessing political participation.

Click here to read this article from the The University of York

Scripture versus Church in the Debate of More and Tyndale

Fabiny, Tibor

Thomas More Studies, 3 (2008)    

Abstract

More made a distinction between God’s “written word” and “unwritten word” already in his Responsio ad Lutherum (1523). Paul, he said, had delivered his teaching without writing. More was asking Luther: “Will you deny that both the written and the unwritten word are equally true?”. More says that Peter the uneducated fisherman also confessed Christ without Scripture, by the direct inspiration of the Spirit, and therefore this faith in Christ is the rock upon which he is to build his church. God therefore spoke interiorly to him: “Or is something
heard only when it is written? Or before the gospels were written, did the Christians not hear the apostles?” .Thomas More first criticized Tyndale’s views in his Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1529) and proposed the distinction between the word written and unwritten in the twenty-fifth chapter of Book I. More says here that human beings were created with the faculty of reason before any writing appeared:

For at our creacyon he gaue but two preceptys or thre / by his owne holy mouth to our fyrste parentes. And as for all that was for theym to do besyde / the reason whyche he had planted in theyr soulys / gaue them sufficient warnynge / wherof the hole some stode in effecte / in the honoure of god and goddys frendys / with loue of eche to other / and to theyr ofsprynge and lynage.

Click here to read this article from Thomas More Studies