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 to hold clergy accountable in his realm and limit Papal influence in it. As a consequence, the Inquisition systematically ruffled the feathers of the most powerful people inside the Spanish Empire as well as in the Vatican. The Spanish Inquisition's trial records show a disproportionate over-representation of nobility and clergy among those who are being investigated and prosecuted. The vast majority of the investigations that the Inquisition initiated itself (investigations on middle and low-class people were usually the consequence of the denounce of neighbors and rarely self-started by the institution). Among the trials, those who are conducted over nobility and