Bard Bard In medieval Gaelic and British culture, a bard was a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or noble), to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities. Originally a specific, lower class of poet, contrasting with the higher rank known as "fili" in Ireland and Highland Scotland, with the decline of living bardic tradition in the modern period the term "bard" acquired generic meanings of an author or minstrel, especially a famous one. For example, William Shakespeare, and Rabindranath Tagore,
John Bard Bard died in 1875. John Bard died in 1899 but remained involved with the institutions he helped found until his death. He is buried in the Bard cemetery. St. Stephen's College officially changed its name to Bard College in 1934 in honor of its founder. John Bard John Bard (1819-1899) was a Christian philanthropist. He and his wife, Margaret Johnston, founded Bard College in New York, which was then known as St. Stephen's College, in order to train Episcopal Church ministers. John Bard was born in Hyde Park, New York in 1819 as the eleventh of fourteen children. Bard was