Pendulum

By Crusader1307

The Pendulum is another possible “fantasy” device which may have been used in the Late-Middle Ages and Renaissance Periods. No doubt made more popular through 19th Century American Gothic Writer Edgar Allen Poe and his story “The Pit and The Pendulum”, many Historians have debated it's actual use at all. The device is a long and slender wooden or iron bar, to which is mounted a crescent-shaped -single edged blade (ranging from 3 to 5 feet in diameter). The bar and blade is positioned in a descending mechanism that functions the same way as a clock works. Gears and pulleys (activated by motion), causes the bar to slowly lower with each successive rotation (back and forth or side to side). This motion causes the blade to slowing descend with each “pass”. The Victim is normally strapped to a table (splayed outwards) – facing up towards the ever descending blade. In theory, the sight of the descending blade (slowly towards on chest or abdomen), is supposed to provide the “needed” testimony. The device could be used as a form of execution, in that it would to allowed to completely cycle through it's downward descent – with the Victim slowly watching Himself being cut in half! When accepted as being an actual “device”, legend puts it's invention with The Spanish Inquisition. One piece of truth is from an 1822 testimony of a former Spanish prisoner, who claimed to have witnessed The Pendulum at work. Many still state that prior to Poe's horrific story, The Pendulum did not exist.