A European bowed stringed instrument used in the Medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, 3 to 5 gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs, sometimes with a figure-8 shaped body. Whatever external form they had, the box-soundchest consisted of back and belly joined by ribs, which is the construction for bowed instruments. The most common shape given to the earliest vielles in France was an oval, which with its modifications remained in favour until the Italian lira da braccio asserted itself as the better type, leading to the violin.

Starting in the middle or end of the 15th century, the word vielle was also used to refer to the hurdy gurdy, as a shortened form of its name: vielle à roue ('vielle with a wheel').