While its origins remain unclear, it is generally accepted that the viola da gamba came about in the second half of the fifteenth century. Its ancestor was the vielle, the old medieval bow. This instrument's appearance changed a lot throughout the first 100 years of its existence, until it was finally stabilised in the 1600s. The idea that the viola was the ancestor of the violin has proven to be false. These two families of instruments were born less than a century apart and were developed in parallel.