The ocarina sounds as though it would have been ideal for mendicant monks, but the type we're familiar with today seems not to have existed centuries ago. Wiki says that it's an "ancient flute-like wind instrument" but I'm not sure what the "ancient" ones were like and haven't had time to research it (supposed to be doing boring Work instead of fun Mudcat, and the work is losing out...)

If there were European medieval ocarinas, what would they have looked like and been called? Is there an "authentic" early ocarina-type-instrument (i.e reproduction) you can get? Clay ones seem to have been around throughout civilisation.

Jack's webpage is an absolute gold mine: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Ocarina/ though I couldn't get the Songbird page-link to work.

The Wiki article seems pretty informative, there's some nice stuff on YouTube, and this website's kind of fun: http://www.ocarina.co.uk/

They certainly have a lovely tone. I had always (rather snobbily, I suppose) underestimated them. Too many years of seeing them hanging, brightly coloured, on leather thongs in crafts stalls at fairs & festivals, which made me think of them more as ornaments or toys than real musical instruments. I stand corrected, and would like to know more about viable "early" ones (by any name).

(I'd also like to see the "dog turds decorated with cake icing" cheap-o's that Jack described, but alas, does not show us :-)