John of Hexham quotes the authority of Theodore of Canterbury regarding the times of the month when one ought to be bled. Who was Theodore?
When Pope Gregory wished to pursue the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, he needed a strong emissary to ensure that the new faith developed under careful supervision. It was particularly important to protect the orthodoxy of Roman beliefs, to prevent contamination between pagan and Christian ideas, and to ensure that the Pope's will was carried out in the naming of bishops and priests.
Gregory selected Theodore for this mission because Theodore had a reputation as a highly learned man and a reliable administrator. Theodore, known to use as "Theodore of Canterbury," was actually born in Tarsus, in Greece. He came to England a full century after Augustine came from Rome to England (Augustine's voyage is outlined in the Navigation module).
Since we know that Theodore was Greek, we can assume that his authority in this matter was especially great, because Greece has a reputation as the source of medical knowledge. But did Greece also have this reputation in the early Middle Ages as a source of special knowledge about medical matters? What does Kieckhefer's book on magic say about Greece in this regard? How was Christian Greece represented to the Anglo-Saxons, and what did they know of Greek more generally, as a language? A recent book by Mary Catherine Bodden will help with this question.
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