Actually I changed my mind a few days ago; I've decided to wait on making my own mead. Not because of legality issues or cost of materials, I'm just not as interested in making it right away as I was initially. But, I'm still open to any other pointers people have. This could make a great thread for recipes.
Example: More bitter/more sweet, has flavorings x,y,z in it, preparation, and resulting taste.
Personally, I don't know what kind of fruits were native to most European countries at the time of interest, so my guess is that there were many different flavors of mead in reality. I want to make a realistic mead eventually, but I don't believe that oranges were native to most of Europe, unless they were an easy import before 1500. I will do research in the meantime.