ABSTRACT
Christianity was spread by brute force as well as by preaching. The venerable Bede tells that the English Christian King Oswald together with his soldiers set up a cross in Hefenfelth and knelt before it in prayer before going off to slaughter their “heathen” enemies. Crusaders could always find some motivation or justification for crusading. This includes the central meaning of that cross as an instrument whereby God permitted himself to be tortured to death. The fact is that Cathars both accepted and rejected moral masochism. Cathar rejection of Christian masochism is evident in their aversion to the cross, the Church’s paradigmatic signifier of Christian moral masochism. In Poland the Badge of the White Eagle included crossed swords which were an equilateral cross as did the Cross of Merit and the Independence Cross. The Bulgarian Badge of the Military Order featured a Maltese cross superimposed upon crossed swords.
