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Historical person
1157–1194
Leopold V was duke of Austria from 1177 to 1194 and participated in the Third Crusade. During the siege of Acre he quarrelled with Richard I of England after the Austrian banner was reportedly removed from a captured position. When Richard travelled home in disguise, Leopold arrested him and transferred him to Emperor Henry VI, who demanded a vast ransom. Leopold was excommunicated for detaining a crusader and died after a riding accident.
Leopold appears in Sharon Kay Penman’s Lionheart and A King’s Ransom, which follow Richard’s crusade, capture and imprisonment. Historical fiction usually casts him as a resentful antagonist, but the dispute also concerned rank, recognition and the complex legal authority of crusading princes. The ransom’s burden on England gives his action consequences far beyond a personal quarrel.
Historical context
Series
The Lionheart series recounts the rise, crusade and embattled kingship of Richard I through the eyes of Ferdia, an Irish captive who becomes Richard's loyal follower. Beginning during the troubled final years of Henry II, the trilogy follows Richard's accession, the Third Crusade, his rivalry with Saladin and…
All books in this series
The five Angevin novels trace the Plantagenet dynasty from the succession crisis after Henry I through Henry II and Eleanor’s turbulent marriage, their sons’ rebellions, Richard I’s crusade, captivity and final campaigns. The sequence combines royal family drama with the Anarchy, Angevin state-building, church–crown conflict and the Third…
All books in this series
Standalone books
