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 of resentment and further polarization of Spanish society as the high nobility and the church, happy with the new acquisition of power, sided and supported the French monarchy ("afrancesados") while other sectors got polarised in growing antimonarchic and anti-French hostility. This situation contributed to the feeding of the black legend of the Inquisition from both extrema. On one side, the court of Spain was suddenly dominated by French intellectuals that came along with the first Bourbon king. As a result, the predominant historiographic view was the French view, which portrayed Spain and the Inquisition as violent and barbaric as consequence