As Willibald watched the customs officials rifle through his baggage, his native Wessex must have felt worlds away. The early medieval monk was no stranger to travel – he had just completed his fourth pilgrimage to Jerusalem – but while passing through Tyre, in modern Lebanon, in the 720s, he and his companions had been arrested and chained while authorities associated with the ruling Umayyad caliphate searched their belongings for contraband. The penalty for smuggling was death, and Willibald was carrying something that he desperately hoped would not be discovered. In his possession he had an innocuous-looking gourd – but this outwardly innocent fruit had been hollowed out and filled with balsam, a valuable and very strictly controlled plant resin that was much sought-after in the Christian West as a key component of chrism, the blend of oils used in various religious rites.
In an effort to disguise the substance’s distinctive smell, Willibald had inserted a reed into the top of the gourd, and topped it up with petroleum. He and his companions must have watched with their hearts in their mouths as the officials found the fruit and sniffed it to determine its contents – but the deception went undetected, and the group were able to continue safely on their way. Decades later, Willibald was living peacefully at the monastery in Heidenheim (in modern Germany) when he reportedly recounted his adventures to the nun Huneburc, who recorded them in her Hodoeporicon of St Willibald (Itinerary of St Willibald).
Willibald’s daring exploits defy the ‘Dark Age’ stereotypes that have long dogged post-Roman Britain. The centuries immediately after the end of imperial administration have traditionally been depicted as a period of decline, when Britain plunged into cultural obscurity and its inhabitants knew little of, and took less interest in, the wider world. Archaeological evidence completely contradicts this pessimistic picture, however, demonstrating that Britain and Ireland were in fact the westernmost point of a vast network of land, river, and sea routes along which an amazingly diverse range of people, ideas, and materials travelled for hundreds of years. Some of these cosmopolitan connections are explored in Silk Roads, a major exhibition currently running at the British Museum (see ‘Further information’ on p.32). Spanning the centuries between AD 500 and 1000, and covering a wide geographical sweep from Japan to Ireland, its displays draw on the collections of the British Museum itself, as well as loans from almost 30 other institutions at home and abroad. Its themes include intriguing insights into the impact of these routes on early medieval Britain and Ireland, and the interconnected, internationally interested, and often intrepid inhabitants of these isles.
