I would recommend reading A Distant Mirror, the book referenced at the start.
"...her generalizations about medieval warfare are grossly inaccurate. Her discussions of individual psychology and group psychology are equally foolish. She seems to have little understanding of what motivated the people about whom she writes and generally resorts to cliches such as chivalry or individual neuroses as explanations."
(One of the best things about Computer Science is that, generally, every publication after 1990 is online and available for those of us without access to an academic research library.)