I hate being a knight. I don’t even know why I am one. You see that picture on the left? I should be the lady, but instead, I am the knight. Hello. I am writing this as Dame Aemillius, head knight of the Knights of Valencia. I live in the House of Valencia, one of the finest Manors of many in the Kingdom of Regality led by King Regal. The only reason I am a knight is because of my father. He, like most men in these times, wanted a son to take the power, but instead, he got a girl. For reasons unknown to me, he wasn’t able to have a male  child so now he says “I’m stuck with you.” He made me become a knight to fulfill his dreams of becoming a knight as a boy which is pathetic to me. 

    For some reason, Lord Braedyn was okay with it. Lord Braedyn is the head of this manor and is very intelligent. He led our Manor from poverty to riches, but I don’t think that he is fully experienced. Right now I wake up to the rusty, Sunday church bells and Clergy member Matilda yelling out her meaningless platitudes. She thinks that I am the most religious person in our Manor just because I always come to church. The actual reason is that I have to follow the code of chivalry and “be nice” to everybody. The church invented the code of chivalry to prevent knights like me from killing everybody in sight. I respect her for getting to her position (God knows how) but she does bore me sometimes. I still listen though. That reminds me that I need to ask someone to replace the bells, they are getting on my nerves with their rusty rings.

    I don’t like hanging out with the nobles or clergy members. They always bore me half to death with their speeches. They are even worse when they’re drunk. I prefer to hang out with the serfs and peasants now they know a real party, especially Serf Lucia. She's one of the only people I would consider a friend in these wretched days although I'm not sure if she feels the same way. I haven’t seen her recently ever since her third child left the house. She seems to be worried about her husband though. I hope he’s okay. 

    Recently, a plague called the black death has been scurrying around. By that, I mean that it has come in the form of rats. Disgusting, big, fat, rats. It has been causing a major problem with everybody becoming infected, luckily it hasn’t reached our manor yet. I know that if it does reach us that we probably won’t be able to treat it. It has been wiping out hundreds of people at once. It has been scaring almost everybody in town. Lord Braedyn shared a decree to all the traders and Knights to be wiped clean before they enter our Manor in case they are infected. 

    Lord Braedyn has requested that all the knights understand what our government is like and how it works. This is to tell us what we are fighting for, but that doesn’t make sense. From what I can gather our government uses Feudalism which is like a pyramid. I recently just learned what a pyramid is from one of the crusades I went on where I passed by Egypt which was a beautiful sight, but I digress. Anyways, the king gives land to the nobles as long as they serve the king, then the nobles give land to the vassals or knights in exchange for protection, then finally the serfs and the peasants. The serfs can’t leave the manor and are not treated very well which is definitely not fair. The peasants are a bit better at being able to leave the manor, but why would anybody do that? If you even step one foot out of the manor's boundaries you will be killed without hesitation. Despite my belief apparently, the king doesn’t hold that much power, and instead, it is the Lords and Vassals, but he doesn’t want you to know that.

    Well, right now I have to go down my everyday breakfast of chicken, bread, and everything rich. Farwell, for now. 

    End of entry one - Dame Aemillius, Head of the Knights of Valencia 

    Hello again. I am back again outside looking up at the stars. Right now I am on the third crusade to take control of Jerusalem. I try to sleep, but snoring buffoons wearing armor keeps me from peace. These dumb crusades are happening because the Christians (me) and the Muslims are fighting over a place called Jerusalem and differences in religion. The battle today was very fierce. Many comrades fell today. Right now we are helping King Richard the Lionheart take back Jerusalem, but at what cost I’m not sure.

    Our allies in France, The Manor of the Great, have been recently becoming very rich, dotings from the King I suppose. I might try to ask Lord Braedyn if they shall lend us some of their knights to fight. I wish these battles would be over, I don’t know why our kingdom even accepted to help King Richard. It is not our war to fight if we don’t get the money or land. For religion maybe. I guess that in the end, only King Regal will get the riches.

    I have been hearing some rumors around the knights that in the next crusade if there is a next one, that we will be destroying Constantinople. I wish we wouldn’t. I have seen Constantinople with my own two eyes. It is beautiful with riches and inventions I’ve never seen before. The smells, sounds, and tastes that come from that place are amazing. Have you ever heard of caviar? It is a type of fish egg, which sounds disgusting, but trust me you won’t regret trying it. It tastes like the ocean itself went and formed itself into a little ball of deliciousness with a bit of sliminess that keeps the insides in.

   I’m getting hungry just thinking about the stuff. I must try to get some before it gets destroyed. Maybe I’ll get a lot and bring it back with me to the serfs and peasants. Now that I think about it, they probably wouldn’t like it. Too exotic for them, I’m guessing. Well, the stars are high in the sky now, I should probably get to bed. 

    End of entry two - Dame Aemillius, Head of the Knights of Valencia

    I still haven’t gotten used to writing my thoughts down like this, but it seems to be helping me with stress. Salutations, it is I, Dame Aemillius again. Remember the last log when I was talking about asking for help with our allies? Well, that didn’t work out well. They gave us knights, sure, but none of them were able to return to their nobles. In the fourth crusade we did end up destroying Constantinople (glad I grabbed that Caviar when I did), but then in the fifth crusade, we got annihilated by the Muslims. I fought my hardest, but still, we did not win. Many brave soldiers died that day. None of the knights that our allies gave us came back. 

   Right now I write in this torn book from the top of our church. I normally come here to get away from morning mass, but today I come here to pray for the souls of the poor knights who could not come back to their homes and loved ones that day. Right now I should be getting ready for another jousting match, but I don’t have the heart to do it. All the nobles who come to the jousting match always underestimate me or yell bad things about me because I’m a woman. I don’t want to deal with that right now.   

   I should tell you that I always win jousting matches, but I don’t find them entertaining at all. Basically, the point is to break your lance on the other knight's shield or body, while the onlookers jeer at you. In the beginning, jousting was just for ceremonies,  weddings, or coronations, but now we have them whenever the nobles are bored. 

   There has been talking around town about Serfs rebelling against the church. I have been trying to find out who has been talking about this, from the outside as a knight, and the inside as a friend, but everybody is so tight-lipped. From what I can gather they believe that the church holds too much power and is corrupt. I agree with them, but I can’t say that. To me, it isn’t something worth going to battle over. I hope that this rebellion thing doesn’t come through. It has been hard enough with The Great Schism, which is when the church got split and now there are three Popes running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They all think that they are the real Pope.

   Our government has taken a turn recently with the King starting to have more power than before which should not be happening. The only thing he should be doing is giving and taking land and money, but now he’s orchestrating all of these fights between manors. I don’t appreciate it that much. It’s taking away money from us, it gives me extra work, also we only have won once. Doesn’t amuse me one bit. 

   It’s almost tax day again. We will soon have money taken away from us so to our nobles, then to our King to take better care of our kingdom or throw parties. Who knows. Well, I have spent enough time up here, I’m going to go eat my caviar lunch now. 

    End of Entry three - Dame Aemillius, Head of the Knights of Valencia

    Well, I was right about the rebellion. Right now it is late at night and I have just saved Clergy member Matilda from a huge mob of serfs and peasants attacking her. They had the last straw when the church asked for donations even though the serfs don’t have money and the ones who did donate later found out that the clergy members themselves were spending it on wine. I just had to fight off a bunch of Serfs trying to climb through the windows and bust through the doors of the church. 

    I didn’t kill anyone, but many serfs were hurt. Unsurprisingly Serf Lucia wasn’t a part of it at all, but her house was still searched in the aftermath of it. There was a lot of fire and tomorrow the serfs have to clean it all up as punishment. No real harm was done to the church, but many of the members were shaken and tomorrow they have to apologize to the serfs, and probably give their donations back too. Rightfully so if you ask me. Hopefully, something like this doesn’t happen again, many of my friend serfs were hurt by me. Clergy member Matilda will probably keep thanking me over and over again tomorrow which will be annoying, but it’s nice to get gratitude once in a while.