Leopold V was the second Duke of Austria. He reigned for nearly two decades near the end of the 12th Century.

He was born in 1157, the son of the reigning Duke of Austria, Henry II, and Theodora Komnene. The realm was relatively peaceful for most of the time that Henry was growing up. In the 1170s, his father and Duke Sobeslaus II of Bohemia were at loggerheads over border issues, and Henry was riding on a horse near Melk when the horse fell off a rotten bridge. The fall occurred in November 1176. Henry sustained major injuries and never recovered. He died on Jan. 13, 1177, in Vienna. At that point, Leopold became Duke of Austria. He was 20. The situation with Bohemia had not been resolved.

Leopold had married Helena of Hungary in 1174. They had two children, both of whom lived into adulthood: Frederick and Leopold.

In 1179, the new duke agreed to a peace deal with the Duchy of Bohemia, as declared by the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Henry reached another agreement seven years later, with Ottokar IV, duke of Styria, in which Ottokar agreed to hand over his duchy to Henry when he died. This happened in 1192, and the Duchy of Austria also gained a large part of what is now Upper Austria.

Henry had gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1182 and then met with the Byzantine emperor, Alexios II Komnenos. Henry returned to the Holy Land in 1190, as part of the Third Crusade. His arrival delayed by bad weather, he arrived just as the Siege of Acre was winding down, in spring 1191. When the emperor's son Frederick, Duke of Swabia died, Leopold took control of the imperial troops besieging Acre.

The Crusader siege of the fabled Acre was eventually successful, after a fresh infusion of troops that included King Richard I of England and King Philip II of France. After the victory, the flags of the conquerors flew in the city. Richard ordered Leopold's flag taken down, seeing himself and Philip as more important because they were crowned kings. An incensed Leopold left the Holy Land and arrived in January 1192 at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. Leopold had nothing complimentary to say about Richard. The emperor had no liking for the English king, either.

Richard left the Holy Land in October 1192 and found that the French ports were closed. To get home, he sailed up the Adriatic Sea and then went over land across Austria, intending to arrive at the Bavarian home of his brother-in-law, Henry the Lion. Richard stopped in Vienna just before Christmas of that year and, though in disguise, somehow gave himself away. Leopold had Richard imprisoned in Düstein and then sent to Trifels Castle in March 1193 to stand before Henry VI. Emperor and duke demanded a huge ransom, for which Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, arranged payment. Leopold went further, demanding that his son Frederick marry Richard's niece Eleanor.

Pope Celestine III excommunicated Leopold for taking another Crusader prisoner. To make amends, Leopold made plans for another Crusade; it didn't happen. His horse fell on him during a tournament in Graz in 1194, and he agreed to an immediate amputation of a foot. The wound became infected with gangrene, and Leopold died, on Dec. 31, 1194. He was 37. His oldest son, Frederick, succeeded him as Duke of Austria. Meanwhile, the share of the ransom that Leopold had received from Eleanor of Aquitaine and others helped to build new city walls for Vienna and found a couple of new towns. The wedding of Frederick and Eleanor never happened.