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Go¨rres simultaneously continued his activity in the academy and in Catholic and national politics. He was appointed professor of history at the University of Munich, was gradually drawn to Catholic mysticism, and became an extreme champion of Catholicism. At the same time, he and his students evinced growing interest in developments in the Holy Land and the fate of its churches. His devotees made pilgrimages to Palestine and donated funds to build churches there. One of them, the Herzog Maximilian Joseph, a leading member of the Catholic Bavarian royal house, arrived in Palestine in May 1838.

Sybel had managed to receive permission from Napoleon III to consult French archives and continued his research in London, Brussels, the Hague, and Berlin. 28 Simultaneously, his interest in the Crusades deepened. In a series of lectures delivered in Munich in 1855 he tried to draw lessons from the Crusades for the current needs of the German people and about the nature of the ideal leader. It is evident that his model was Friedrich Barbarossa, whom he described as follows: He was born a ruler in the highest sense of the word; he possessed all the attributes of power; bold yet cautious, courageous and enduring, energetic and methodical, he towered proudly above all who surrounded him and had the highest conception of his princely calling.

D. diploma. Goren, 1999, 128–34. The ties between Ludwig I and Go¨rres’ Catholic circles came abruptly to an end when Sepp returned to Bavaria, due to the king’s marriage to Spanish dancer Lola Montez. Ludwig dismissed ultra-Montanist professors who criticised him, including Sepp. The clash reached its peak during Nationalist discourse and Crusader archaeology 35 Sepp, who also led the conservative and ultra-Montanist Catholic circles which preached that Rome should be supreme in any conflict with the nation-state, became the leading personality who induced Go¨rres’ devotees to take an interest in the Levant.