Les Rois Maudits - medieval TV series

Les Rois Maudits is the history of Philippe the Fair, the King of France who finally suppressed the Templars. The angle taken in the TV series is that King Philippe had basically run out of money and eyed up the Templars as a tempting source of booty. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The original TV series came out in 1972-1973 and is set during the reigns of the last five kings of the Capetian dynasty and the first two kings of the House of Valois. The series begins as the French King Philip the Fair, already surrounded by scandal and intrigue, brings a curse upon his family when he persecutes the Knights Templar. The succession of monarchs that follows leads France and England to the Hundred Years’ War.

There was a second TV adaptation in 2005 which the IMDb site described as follows:

Based on the novel of the same name by Maurice Druon, Les Rois maudits (The Cursed Kings) is the second television adaptation of this seven-volume book which is widely agreed to be an accurate representation of actual events. It is the early 1300’s and the treasury of France, under the rule of Philippe IV (Philippe le Bel or Philippe the Beautiful), is empty.

The king decides the only solution is to raid the treasures of the Knights Templar (amongst others) and concocts various charges of treason, heresy and deviance against the Knights and their Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Having confessed under torture to the crimes of which he is accused, de Molay is condemned to be burned at the stake.

With his dying breath he curses the king, the king’s advisor (Guillaume de Nogaret), the pope (Pope Clement V) and the thirteen succeeding generations of their families. There follows one of the most dramatic periods in French history, half a century of political intrigue, murder, treason, war and famine, which ultimately culminates in the 100 Years War.

Both TV series were based on the novels of Maurice Druon (1918-2009). The titles of his novels are as follows: