 When quoting him in his 1742 history book, Matthias Bel was sceptical about this particular detail, he nevertheless helped the legend to spread.Subsequent writers of history and fiction alike often identified vanity as the sole motivation for Báthory's crimes.Modern historians Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally have concluded that the theory Báthory murdered on account of her vanity sprang up from contemporary prejudices about gender roles.