Part of what you seem to try to contextualize has to do with historical thinking and specifically if you should or shouldn't apply modern values to historic events and people. Which is a valid question and something that also depends on how you are looking at history and for what purpose. If you are studying history and are trying to understand events as they unfolded it can sometimes hinder you to apply your modern values directly as they will prevent you from understanding why things happen at that time. That doesn't however mean that you can't judge actions of historical people for being wrong compared to today's standards.
To give some context I did grab a book from my book shelve which is aimed at aspiring history teachers as it goes into didactic challenges involved in teaching history as it has a relevant passage in it. Unfortunately the book is in dutch so I did my best to translate it.
A history teacher confronts his pupils with a situation in which a lord kills three serfs on