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It did indeed turn into the trusty guitar in due course, but not before it had cross-fertilised with another medieval instrument, the citole, whose chief successor in England was unhelpfully called the cittern.

“Who taught you to build walls, my boy?” asked a young man with bright dark eyes and a citole over his shoulder.

Mr Galpin places the citole in the same class as the gittern. 

Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, To Him round whom all souls Kneel—the unnumber'd solemn heads Bowed with their aureoles: And Angels, meeting us, shall sing To their citherns and citoles.

This stained-glass imagery was so easy to copy that, before long, citoles and damoisels and aureoles and garths and glamours and all the rest of the picturesque furniture grew to be a burden.