The shawm is a long, straight wooden instrument with a bell, played with a double reed similar to a small bassoon reed. Like many European instruments, the shawm started life as an Arabic instrument. Instruments very much like the medieval shawm can still be heard in many countries today, played by street musicians or sometimes by military bands.
The shawm band occupied its processional/dance/military niche until the mid-seventeenth century. Fashions then changed, and over a few decades, the soprano shawm lost its power and grandeur, acquired a narrower bore, a more introspective tone, some fancy turning and a couple of keys, and appeared in the salons of the eighteenth century as the new oboe.