Prior to the Renaissance Era (before 1500), the building of woodwind instruments could be exclusively imagined in a straight line similar to that of the members of the shawm family, whose bass and double bass variants differed from one another only in their quantitative determinatness within the family. By the sixteenth century, they had become outdated and useless for music practice because they no longer satisfied the register requirements of a more refined age.
Let us consider the negative properties of these pre-Renaissance instruments. The large, resonant bell located at the lower end of the instrument directed the tone toward the floor where it suffered deformation. Its storage required much room. The thick walls of the body of the instrument, designed to ensure physical safety, muffled the sound. Such a stiff, unmanageable body was by no means suitable to reveal the true "individuality" of the instrument. The fingering was hard to manage. The distances between the sound holes of the contra bombard, for example, could not be spanned. The primitive wrought iron key-arms and levers were sixty to eighty cm. long. The swallow tailed key-heads were of a palm's width. A hand of medium size was not able to master these difficulties. It has been proven in practice that the rectilinear design of the body of the bombard could not be turned into a mobile bass, a true contrabass instrument. (See figures: 1,2,3,4,5.) The great angle of inclination of the bore was due to the instability of the structure which was conically shaped. All this resulted in an instrument of enormous dimensions. The sound was anything but poetic.
All things considered, it is little wonder that the instrument was ousted from the domain of more pretentious art music. The augmentation of the gamut was impossible because of the rectilinear length. Overblowing was hardly possible. The compass was at most an octave and a half to two octaves. The contemporary techniques of reed scraping were unknown. People at that time had no knowledge whatever of improving reed quality.
Then what was the way of development?
How could one achieve further progress? All that has been listed
above provides evidence enough that the old ways of the Middle
Ages had been fully exemplified by the shawm family. The Sixteenth
Century called for reforms in everything. The stylistic characteristics
of the "Gothic" instruments obstructed all kinds of
plasticity, while the creative fantasy of the Renaissance, then
at its height, opened broad vistas for the replanning and executing
of a new type of bass structure. Attention was focused on finding
ways and means to produce curved wooden tubes. Although it is
true that slightly bent double-reed structures, such as the cylindrical-curved
cornet or the Krummhorn and the conical-crooked Platerspiel had
been constructed in former times already; more refined structures
were needed in order to expand the range both downward 
and upward. It
seems probable that the first "shortened" instrument
was not due to some purposeful activity to this end, but to some
spontaneous transgression of the quantitative limits which then
gave stimuli to conscious improvements. It is not forgotten either
that the initial form was the "phagotum", a combination
of bagpipe and organ, (See Fig. 6.) invented by Afranio Albonesi
of Ferrara who, having been brought up in the sphere of polyphonic
music, probably developed a polyphonic instrument to suit his
needs. His cleverly constructed double-bass tube closed in a cylindrical
portable case might have given him the idea of making the similarly
cylindrical "rackett". (See Fig. 7-8.) To our
knowledge, Afranio had no intention of replacing the shawm, but
it was through his achievement that the "multiple unit"
tube system evolved from the doubletube structure. Thus the 'KORT-idea
was born! (Kort = kurz = short.) The aim of the reform was
to render the greatest possible part of the tube manageable by
means of manifold curvings and twistings, and by double or triple
borings. Henceforth, one might rightly speak of the systematic
study of positioning of the hands and exploiting the fingering
in the most effective way. Efforts were therefore made to design
such small bodies in which manipulation with the direction of
the tube boring could be carried out without abridging the characteristic
total rectilinear length.
The "tartöld" (See Fig. 9-10.) and the "sordun " (See Fig. 11 - 12) - belong to this part as inspiring instruments more as an idea than a movement!
All things considered, let it be announced conclusively that the RACKETT, the PHAGOTUM, the TARTÖLD, together with the cylindrical KORTHOLT and SORDUN, though not treated as such in contemporary literature, were "KORT" instruments, necessitated by the requirements of the development! That is to say, they were SHORTENED STRUCTURES which had entered the sixteenth-century phase of the evolution of wind instruments, and promised a successful solution to the problems of rectilinear instrument construction.
In the course of development there appeared among the exclusively cylindrical "Kort" instruments the conical bombard as well. It turned up in the Netherlands around 1540 as a newer variant of the Kort-family in the form of one wooden-block structure containing tubes of parallel boring. Somewhat later, when it possessed already eight sound-holes and two keys, it was called the DOLCIAN or DULZIAN, because of its soft, mild, delicate tone. It is in this corpus that the transformation, the qualitative leap of the bass-shawm or bombard took place. After the lapse of the decade or two, this new and most vital instrument began to be called the FAGOTT (or Fagotto in Italian) because of its resemblance in appearance to a bundle of sticks. (See Fig. 13.)
In the bassoon structure all these properties were realized which could not be attained with the bombard structure - the augmentation of the compass, a more refined system of appliances, improvement of the tonal quality and more comfortable handling.
No contemporary treatise was needed, since the time problems had been solved by the basically new and refined structure of the bassoon. The appropriate conical tube was made suitable as the instrument developed.
Following the act of replanning - the tenor variant was the first constructed. As the main member of the dolcian-fagott family. Michael Praetorius probably designated this instrument by 1618 and gave it the following name: "Zingel Kortholt, Basset oder Tenor zum Chorist-Fagott. " (See Fig. 14.) He did not call it a tenor- bassoon, but considered it a simple kortholt. In England the tenor and bass-bassoons were distinguished by the terms Single Curtal and Double Curtal as early as 1550. The usage derived from the word Kortholt of the German speaking areas.
Thus in summary, the word "Kortholt" provides evidence and serves as objective proof of the true genesis and the delineation of the new invention! All variants of the "kortholt-dolcian-bassoon" family of the woodwind instrument can be grouped around this from the Discant to the Doppelfagott somewhere in Western Europe, from around the middle of the sixteenth century.
In consideration of the historical-logical proofs expounded in this study it is hoped that the constructions that seemed to be unexpected innovations in their times had been logically begotten in the course of evolution, having been based on the functional principles of their forerunners. From these, only the fundamental characteristic features had been inherited, with slight or unessential modifications, such as in the resonant organ, the bore of the tube, the normal tuning, and the building materials. The more heterogeneous features they assumed by invention and innovation - such as the formal condensation aimed at shortening, the use of slightly different measurements, the reduction of the wall thickness of the corpus, the construction from more component parts, the modification of the number of keys and sound- holes, and other improvements effected for the purpose of gaining greater overtones and amplifying the register - sometimes concealed the forerunner or the immediate antecedent that prompted the innovations. As has been shown, this happened in the case of the bombard and bassoon. The possibilities of the bassoon had been fully given in the bombard corpus, only the inherent potentialities had to be exposed! (See Fig. 15.)
So the qualitative and quantitative determinateness of the bombard is closely interrelated - the change of the one involved of necessity the change of the other. Quantitative changes reaching the limits present for the given instrument caused the qualitative changes. But the interdependence of quantity and quality is not one-sided. Not only do the quantitative changes result in qualitative ones, but also vice versa. Each process of the qualitative leap means at the same time that the further quantitative changes are bound to follow. This is only natural since the new quality is organically intertwined with the new quantity or the new quantitative proportions. This can be illustrated by the following examples: 1) The curved "Kort" instruments of the Renaissance period that supplanted the rectilinear "Gothic" models represented a qualitatively new form of designing and building in the field of wind instruments. In this case the quantitative changes had brought about a new quality. And this new quality embodied in the respective "Kort" instruments resulted in a higher degree of differentiation of technical fingering than was possible with the obsolete "Gothic" model. The possibilities of fingering were increased by holding the instrument nearer the human body, by adjusting the fingerholes to the finger-tips, and by using the thumbs. Owing to these, every newer type of instrument: rackett, sordun, tartold, phagotum, kortholt, or dolcian, achieved a compass wider than those of the former standard instruments. And this was the primary aim. This means that the qualitative changes brought about new quantitative changes.
2) It has become clear by now that the idea of "shortening" evolved and asserted itself at a faster rate than what was conceivable even at the peak of the practice of the Gothic system. In other words, by the transition to the qualitatively new system of instrument building a new and faster developmental rate was achieved. This also shows quality being changed into quantity.
All this has been presented and examined in order to clarify the origins of the bassoon.