Generally saying, Lute is a term for almost any string instrument having the strings running over a sound box. But if you are actually talking about a Lute one is meaning the European lute (or modern Near-Eastern oud) with characteristics such as a soundboard with a single decorated sound hole called the rose, a shell of thin wooden stripes and most known: a headstock which is angled back from the neck at almost 90°.

The first Lutes where brought to Spain by the Moors and where plucked with a pick, later they where played with fingers alone. The Lute's strings are arranged in courses, in two strings each, except for the highest pitch course which only consists of a single string, called the chanterelle.
Our Lute is a renaissance Lute with 8 courses: (highest to lowest) a' e' b g d A G E - The courses are tuned in unison. Nowadays Lutes are equipped with nylon strings, the same as classical guitars today, but historically they where made of animal guts.
The lute is used in a great variety of instrumental music from the Medieval to the late Baroque eras and was the most important instrument for secular music in the Renaissance. But it is also used in score music such as in the recent Jim Jarmusch´s movie "Only Lovers left alone".

http://www.cinematique-instruments.com/inst_lute.php

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