Meridiana: The succubus lover of a Pope.

Image By Diane Özdamar

The demons and vampires are not only recurrent visitors of cemeteries, but they also lived in most of the medieval cuts, in each convent and library. In fact, even the Vatican wasn´t safe from them. Meridiana was a famous succubus, i.e. a female spirit prone to debauchery lover, very feared by monks, bishops, cardinals, and even by the pontiff.
The history of Meridiana was noted by Walter Map in his work of 1185 De Nugis Curialum, which means something like: The trifles of courtier. Walter Map maintains the hypothesis that Meridiana was the lover - and friend and counselor, and confidant- the mathematician and scholar Gerbert of Aurillac, who would become Pope Sylvester II, more known as the Pope of the Millennium, and whose pontificate, brief and agitated by continuing conflict, spread between 999 and 1003.
During its four years of Pope Sylvester II fought hard and with little success, against simony and the heresy that threatened to Rome. Its greatest ally in this crusade against the blasphemy crime was, strangely, one sent from the hell: Meridiana.
Go back in time to know the origin of this mythological story of love. As a young priest Gerbert of Aurillac fell madly in love with the daughter of the Provost of Rheims; case doubly unfortunate if we take into account their vows of chastity in addition to its ugliness. She unequivocally rejected, and perhaps with cruelty. Gerbert, desperate, fell into a deep melancholy.
In this awful state met Meridiana, who offered him money, wisdom, and above all his own body, delicate and perfect, under the condition that he be unconditionally faithful. Gerbert of Aurillac agreed and his career amounted very faster. It soon became Archbishop of Rheims, in Cardinal, Archbishop of Ravenna, and finally Pope.
Throughout his life he kept his relationship with Meridiana in a prudent secret. Walter Map noted with any logic that the powers of hell did not always work for their own benefit, and which often acted as true love toward the mortals. Meridiana fell in love sincerely of good Gerbert of Aurillac, even she was indulgent with some infidelities, as that remained with the daughter of the Provost of Rheims, who found him suddenly attractive once he was ordered Pope.
The relationship of Meridiana with the Pope Sylvester was, as they say, ideal. Intellectually stimulating during the day and epidermal during the evenings. For greater benefits, the supernatural presence of a diabolical agent - argue the demonologists- redoubles the force of the men of faith. Someday, before traveling to the East,
Meridiana was snatched by a breathtaking vision, which prophesied the end of his mistress: he will die saying mass in Jerusalem. Aware that his end was approaching, the Pope Sylvester made a public confession, regretted of his sins and departed quickly toward Jerusalem, where he died just at the end of the mass.
His body was moved to Rome in the middle of large laments and funeral processions. Even the fiercest papal lackeys managed to persuade Meridiana to abandon the procession. She soon accompanied him in death. During a council secret, a group of flexible ideology priests decided that this love, although unnatural and unjustifiable theologically, was pure in essence, and the body of Meridiana was deposited in the sarcophagus of the own Sylvester II in the Basilica of St John Lateran.
Those who have accessed to the crypt ensure that the common gravestone flows a thick steam and dark that announces the death of the Pope. Walter Map, less pious, ensured that in the evenings you can hear strange moans and jolts from the sarcophagus, accompanied by a kind of fog or sweat that condenses on the marble sacred, although reserves any type of interpretation on this mystery.

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