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 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 descended from a family of physicians and professors. His father, William Bard, was an attorney who was a pioneer in life insurance in this country. John Bard was also the grandson of Samuel Bard, a prominent doctor, a founder of Columbia University's medical school, and