The Pit and the Pendulum and you find an appeal to the nerves by tawdry physical affrightments." The Pit and the Pendulum "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual "The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843". The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such
Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition used the "Court of the Inquisition as an instrument for its own ends. The Church used the Inquisition to gag freedom of expression and impede the diffusion of the truth. It imposed a rigid despotism over three and a half centuries of Spanish history". Some common mistakes when reporting inquisitorial activity done by XX century historians can´t be considered fully part of the black legend, even though they are likely prompted by assumptions created by the Black Legend in Historiography. They tend to steam from a lack of awareness of the modern-bourocratic nature of the Spanish Inquisition in a time