Mead Primary Sources

Mead (sometimes: "meath") is a fermented, alcoholic beverage made primarily of water and honey.

There are many sub-types of mead with their own names:

Metheglin

a mead containing spices

Melomel

a mead containing fruit

Oxymel

a mead containing vinegar

among others, some of which are period names (metheglin, melomel) and some are not (capsicumel).

Sources

Name	Date	Country	Language	English Translation	Description	Panels
De Re Rustica by Columella	~50 CE	Rome	Classical Latin	1745 translation, others exist.	Roman farm manual, contains mead recipes - De aqua mulsa facienda
Naturalis Historia by Pliny	79 CE	Rome	Classical Latin	1601 translation, [1855], others exist.	A survey of the natural world, contains references to mead.
Opus agriculturae (Palladius on husbondrie)	~400 CE	Rome	Classical Latin	Middle English version ~1420	Book on agriculture provides a recipe for mead, "De Idromelle." The digitized manuscript is OCR'd poorly, so you may need to go to the scanned edition.
Trossingen 58 Grave Find	580 CE	Germany	Archaeological, book in German		This grave find contained a bottle with pollen grains indicating a mixed fermented beverage including honey.	6th Century CE Hopped Mead
al-Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ of Abu Muhammad al-Muthaffar ibn Nasr ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq	900-1000 CE	Iraq	Arabic	available, in print	The earliest known Arabic cookbook, it has several mead recipes in it.
Geoponica	900-1000 CE	Byzantine Empire	Greek	available	A Byzantine farm manual, contains mead, cyser, pyment, and rhodomel recipes.
Tractatus de magnete et operationibus eius, folio 20r	1300-1400 CE	England	Text in Latin, Recipes in (middle) English	in English, transcription available	The earliest known English mead recipe.	6th Century CE Hopped Mead
Maison rustique, or The countrey farme	1564 CE	France	French	Period English Translation	A comprehensive text on running a country estate.
The Closet of Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened	1669 CE	England	English	(in English)	Post-period, but likely based on period techniques. Comprehensive, and reasonably detailed. Contains a truly disgusting number of mead recipes.	To Make White Mead

See Also

Elska á Fjárfelli of Aethelmearc's list of recipes