Bard, the name, known to the Romans since 200 B.C., by which the Gauls and other Celtic peoples (British, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch) designated their minstrels. Like the Scôps of the Anglo-Saxons, and the Skalds of Scandinavia, the bards celebrated the deeds of gods and heroes at religious solemnities, and the festivities of princes and nobles, accompanying their recitations with the harp or Crwth (q.v.); they excited the armies to bravery, preceded them into the fight, and formed the heralds of princes and the mediators of peace. The institution early disappeared among the Gauls, but lingered long in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The bards formed a hereditary order, and exercised a decided national influence. The minstrels among the Celts, as among the Germans, were the organ of the people, and the channel of all historical tradition. It is supposed that in Wales, about 940 A.D., their privileges were defined and fixed by the laws which bear the name of King Howel Dha; and in 1078 the whole order is said to have been reformed and regulated anew by Gryffith ap Conan. At Caerwys, Aberfraw, and Mathraval, there were held from time to time great competitions in minstrelsy, called Eisteddfods (q.v.), at which the judges were appointed by the prince. When Wales was conquered by Edward I. (1284), the bards lost their privileges, and were, according to tradition, persecuted and put to death; but succeeding princes countenanced the institution, and Eisteddfods were repeatedly held under royal commission down to the reign of Elizabeth. See WELSH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
In Ireland, the bards are believed to have been a hereditary guild, divided into three classes—the Filedha, who sung in the service of religion and in war, and were the counsellors and heralds of princes; the Breitheamhain, who recited or chanted the laws; the Seanachaidhe, who were chroniclers and genealogists to princes and nobles. Their ample privileges and endowments of land gave them an exorbitant influence, which both princes and people had sometimes to rise against and curb. The great skill of the Irish bards on the harp was acknowledged everywhere. After the conquest of Ireland by Henry II., the profession began to sink. Still many of the chiefs maintained bards in their families, whose songs and legends kept up the national feeling. This occasioned several measures of the English rulers against the Irish bards; Elizabeth ordered the bards that were captured to be hanged, as the instigators of rebellion. Turlough O'Carolan, born 1670, died 1737, is reckoned the last Irish bard; his poems were translated into English by Furlory. Other lays of the bards have been translated by Miss Brooke, Relics of Irish Poetry (Dub. 1789), and Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy (Dub. 1831).
The bardism of Scotland may be conjectured to have been similar to that of Ireland; but little is certainly known of the subject beyond the fact that there were poets or bards of different degrees in the Highlands down to the 17th century. In various Scottish enactments from 1449 onwards, bards were coupled with 'sorners' and 'masterful beggars,' as liable to hanging or burning on the cheek.
The name of bard was unknown among the Germanic nations; though a corrupt reading in some MSS. of the Germania of Tacitus (barditus for baritus, 'war-cry') led Klopstock and others to write wild religious and war songs, which they called 'bardeits,' under the notion that they were restoring a branch of the national literature.