Some Historical Musical Instruments

Here's a nifty page: Medieval and Renaissance Instruments. There's a list of instruments which, when you click on the name, will take you to a photo of someone playing it. When you click on the instrument in the photo, you can hear what the instrument sounded like. There are some instruments here that I've heard of before, such as the lute, bagpipe, or recorder. But there are many more that I've never heard of, such as the kortholt, the rebec, the serpent, the schalmei, and the wonderfully named zink. Browsing through here can help you to imagine the music that Chaucer and Shakespeare listened to.