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© ElizabethBathory.Org
Opaque image of Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
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Imgage photography: ID 18175803 © Tomas1111 | Dreamstime.com. Licensed by Jozef Borovský.
Opaque image of Elizabeth Bathory's fortress ruin, Slovakia, present-day.
Bottom Coat of Arms
© Jozef Borovský
The coat of arms depicted here is a modern representation, but its based on the real historic medieval Serbian Lazareviċ design from about the same time when the Bathorys were inducted into the order before it became a secular organisation.
Bathory of Ecsed Coat of Arms - Elizabeth Bathory's family coat of arms. The three white stripes represent, according to some, three wolves' teeth, or three dragon claws. It's the latter.
Who came up with the dragon motif, exactly? Sigismund Luxembourg, when he created his Society of the Dragon. Its emblem was the Dragon of Saint George which encircled the member's ancestral coat of arms, symbolising that Draconists, as the members were known, were beyond any relation with the "natural" world. By the power of the dragon, they were imbued, on a cosmic level, as bringers of stability or disorder, stasis or dynamism, life or death as the champions of Christendom. The Society had a triple purpose - to safeguard the king's reign, to destroy the papal schism, and all enemies of Christendom - the latter was open to interpretation an any given day. Its exclusively elitist members solemnly vowed themselves loyal to each other, by their titles, lands, and mutual protection which extended beyond death. Draconists swore to uphold an eternal covenant. The Society of the Dragon was the government of Sigismund's new Hungary.
The Bathory crest also includes the dragon motif, but not for same reasons as Sigismund Luxembourg's. The Bathorys usurped Sigismund's Society and redefined it as the first secular organization in history. But why not choose a regal animal like the lion in their armorial? As hard as this may seem to believe, in the medieval symbology of the military order of the Knights Templar (c. 1119 to c. 1312), Satan was represented by the lion. In fact, it's why all Templar knights were forbidden to hunt any wild animal except the Lion. Furthermore, all enemies of Christendom - heretics and heathens, including with the early Bathorys - with whom the knights, and all of Christendom were at war with, were represented by the dragon. Thanks to greed and hatred, the Templars were, of course, exterminated under the guise of heresy, not for their beliefs, but because the French kingdom was bankrupt as a result of waging futile crusades against perceived enemies. Templar wealth was confiscated by the French king with the blessing of his Avignon Pope. This war between Christendom and heretic-heathens is the only reason the new Bathory secular Society of the Dragon kept the dragon motif, not because they intended to destroy Christendom, but because they and their allies wanted to create a secular Europe without a papacy or empire. The Bathorys used the dragon claws and dragon motif in their coat of arms in various forms right until their extinctions at the hands of the Habsburgs in the seventeenth century. Members of the Bathory Society also used the dragon motif. Read about it in the Chrysalis Books.
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