Kyot

Kyot was, according to Wolfram von Eschenbach, a Provençal troubadour to whom he owes the source for his Parzival poetry. Since Kyot is not historically identifiable, he is usually considered to be a pure invention of Wolfram. Occasionally, he is also identified with the Northern French trouvère Guyot or Guiot de Provins (* c. 1150; † after 1208), who came from Provins in Champagne and was very well-known at the time; he probably wrote dozens of songs, but only six of them have survived. He also wrote two moral satires, of which La Bible Guiot (Bible here simply means "satire") is the better known. No "Parzval" poetry is known from him, however, which is why his identification with Wolfram's Kyot is increasingly considered unlikely. In Umberto Eco's novel "Baudolino", Guiot appears, mixed with Kyot's features, as the title character's companion.

Wolfram mentions Kyot quite abruptly only in the 8th book (416, 21-30) of his Parzival poetry and then tells his story in more detail in the 9th book (453, 5 - 455, 22).

Kyôt ist ein Provenzâl, der dise âventiur von Parzivâl heidensch geschriben sach. swaz er en franzoys dâ von gesprach, bin ich niht der witze laz, dez sage ich tiuschen fürbaz. (416, 21-30)

Kiot is a Provençal, Who found the tale of Parzival Written in a pagan book. As he transferred it into French, So it will be, if I lack not the wit, By me in German verily retold.

In Toledo, Kyot found a forgotten Arabic manuscript by Flegetanis, a Muslim astronomer and descendant of Solomon, who had read the secrets of the Holy Grail in the stellar scripture. After learning the Arabic language and deciphering the manuscript, he travelled throughout Europe to learn more about the Grail. In the process, he came across the story of Parzival in Anjou. Moreover, Kyot had asked him to reveal his name only in the right place.

The Stellar Script and the Grail Bowl

Crescent Moon, the dark Moon is dimly illuminated by earthlight.

→ See also: Ganganda greida

It was only through Kyot's reference to the stellar script that Rudolf Steiner was able to reveal the secret of the Grail Bowl:

„One often does not even know that anything one receives from the depths of the occult world relates to some problem one has been pursuing for years. So I didn't know what to do with it when I once asked the Norwegian folk-spirit, the Nordic folk-spirit, about Parzival and he said: "Learn to understand the word that has flowed through my power into the Nordic Parzival saga: 'Ganganda greida' - the running-around refreshment - something like that! I knew nothing about it. And again I didn't know what to do with it when I came out of St. Peter's Church in Rome under the impression of Michelangelo's work, which can be found immediately to the right, of the Mother with Jesus, the still young-looking Mother with the already dead Jesus in her womb. And under the after-effect - that is such a guidance - of seeing this work of art came, not like a vision, but like a true imagination out of the spiritual world, the picture which is inscribed in the Akasha Chronicle and which shows us how Parzival, after he leaves the Grail Castle for the first time, where he had not asked about the secrets which rule there, meets a young woman in the forest who is holding the bridegroom in her lap and weeping over him. But I knew, my dear friends, that the picture, whether it be the mother or the bride, from whom the bridegroom has died away - often the Christ is called the bridegroom - had a meaning, and that the connection, which truly presented itself without my doing, had a meaning.“ (Lit.:GA 149, p. 83f)

„It is just that he finds the Grail shortly or immediately before the death of the old Amfortas, the Fisher King. Then it is that the knighthood of the Holy Grail, the holy knighthood, comes to meet him with the words: 'Your name shines in the Grail! You are the future ruler, the king of the Grail, for your name has shone forth from the holy bowl! - Parzival becomes King of the Grail. So the name of Parzival is written on the holy, gold-shining bowl, in which there is a host. That's what it says.

And now, as I was about to find the bowl, I was first misled, misled by a certain circumstance, my dear friends. It is - I say this in all modesty, not in order to express anything immodest - it has always seemed necessary to me in occult research not only to take into account what results directly from occult sources, but, if it is a serious problem, to take into account what external research has brought to light. And it seems to me that it is generally a good thing not to slacken in the pursuit of a problem and to consult conscientiously all that external scholarship has to say, so that one remains, so to speak, on earth and does not lose oneself completely in the cuckoo's home of the clouds. It was here that this exoteric scholarship misled me. Precisely because of what it brought to light, it diverted me from the right path at first - a long time ago, in fact; for from this exoteric research I could see that Wolfram von Eschenbach, when he began to write his Parzival - so says this exoteric research - used, according to his own sayings, that Chrestien de Troyes and a certain Kyot. This Kyot cannot be found by external exoteric research, and it therefore considers him to be an invention of Wolfram von Eschenbach, as if Wolfram von Eschenbach had wanted to find another source for the many things he adds to what he finds in Chrestien de Troyes. At the most, external scholarship is willing to admit that this Kyot was a copyist of the works of Christian of Troyes and that Wolfram von Eschenbach then expanded this matter in a somewhat imaginative way.

You see what this external research must lead to. It must lead one to more or less abandon the path that leads via that Kyot, for it is actually regarded by external research as an invention of Wolfram von Eschenbach.“ (S. 87f)

„And when I then tried to accompany Parzival in spirit, when he went to the Grail again after his stay with the hermit, it was often as if the starry script shone in my soul, as he rode along by day and by night and as he was devoted to nature by day and to the stars by night, as if the starry script had spoken into his unconscious and as if this starry script was only a preannouncement of what the holy knighthood, which came to him from the Grail, was saying: "From the Holy Grail your name shines forth brilliantly. " But Parzival evidently knew nothing to do with what appeared to him from the stars, for it remained in his unconscious, and therefore one cannot really interpret it, no matter how hard one tries to delve into it through spiritual-scientific research.

Then I tried to come back to the Kyot, and lo and behold, one thing in particular that Wolfram von Eschenbach says about it made a deep impression, and I had to bring it together with the "Ganganda greida". It put itself together. I also had to bring it together with the image of the woman holding the bridegroom, the dead one, in her bosom. Once upon a time, as if not searching at all, I came across this word that is said by Kyot. The word is: "er jach, ez hiez ein dinc der grâl" - he said, a thing was called the Grail. And then we are told by the exoteric research itself how he came to this: he jach, ez hiez ein dinc der grâl. He got hold of a book by Flegetanis in Spain. This is an astrological book. There is no doubt about it: Kyot is even the one who, inspired by Flegetanis - one whom he calls Flegetanis and in whom, as it were, something of the knowledge of stellar script comes to life - inspired, that is, by this resurgent astrology, sees the thing called the Grail. Now I knew that the Kyot was not to be abandoned, that he was opening up an important trail when one researches the spiritual sciences: that he had at least seen the Grail.

So where is the Grail, which must be found today in such a way that the name of Parzival is written on it, where is it to be found? Well, you see, in the course of my research it became clear to me that it must be searched for in the stellar script - first of all the name. And then it came to me one day, which I must regard as a particularly significant one for me, where the shining golden bowl is to be found in its reality; at first in such a way that through it - where it expresses itself through its star-writing symbol - we are led to the secret of the Grail. And there I saw in the stellar script that which everyone can see - only at first he does not find the secret of the thing. For one day, when I was looking inwardly at the golden crescent moon, when it appears in the sky in such a way that the dark moon is faintly visible in it like a large disc, so that one sees outwardly-physically the golden shining moon - Ganganda greida, the wandering wayfaring - and in it the great host, the dark disc, that which one does not see of the moon when one looks only superficially, what one sees when one looks more closely. For then one sees the dark disc, and in wonderful letters of the occult script on the crescent moon - the name Parzival! That, my dear friends, was at first the starry writing. For indeed, seen in the right light, this reading of the star-script yields for our hearts and minds something - though perhaps not yet all - of the Parzival mystery, of the mystery of the Holy Grail.“ (S. 90ff)

Literature

• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Jessie L. Weston (Translator): Parzival. A Knightly Epic. Volume 1 & 2. London 1894 Volume 1 Volume 2
• Rudolf Steiner: Christ and the Spiritual World. The Search for the Holy Grail. CW 149. Translated by Charles Davy and D. S. Osmond. Rudolf Steiner Press 1963 rsarchive.org

German

• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Karl Simrock (Übers.): Parzival und Titurel. 2 Bände, Stuttgart 1862 pdf
• Wolfram von Eschenbach, Karl Lachmann (Hrsg.), Parzival, 5. Auflage, Berlin 1891 pdf
• Rudolf Steiner: Christus und die geistige Welt. Von der Suche nach dem heiligen Gral, GA 149 (2004), ISBN 3-7274-1490-1 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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