BARD, the name known to the Romans since 240 B.C., by which the Gauls and other Celtic peoples (British, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch) designated their minstrels. Like the ScOps of the Anglo-Saxons, and the Scalds 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 chrotta eruit and elarseach); 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 tra dition. 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 Howe] Dha; and in 1078 the whole order is said to have been reformed and regulated anew by Gryffith ap Conan. At Caerwys, Aberfrnw, and Mathraval, there were held from time to time great competitions in min strelsy, called eisteddfods, 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 repetitedly held under royal commission down to the reign of Elizabeth. Since then, exertions for the revival of national Welsh poetry and the bardic profession have been made by several societies: the G wyneddigion, founded in 1770; the Cambrian, in 1818; and more recently, the Metropolitan Cambrian institu tion. To these societies, and to the patriotism of individuals, we owe collections of the relics of the lays of the Welsh bards, none of which, it should be added, can be traced to MSS. of an older date than the 12th century. The most interesting of those relics are those of Liware'll-Henn, Aneurin, and Taliesin. See Jones's Relies of the 1114.111 Bards,
(1794); Owen's Hyvyraan Arehaology of Wales (3 vols., 1801-7); Pained des Bardes Bre tons du vio Siele, par 2 H. de la Villemargue (Paris, 1830), etc. 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 counselors and heralds of pri4ces; the Braitheamhain, who recited or chanted the laws; the Seanachaidhe, who were chroniclers and genealogists to princes and nobles. Their ample privileges and endowments of laud 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. Turlogh O'Caro lan, b. 1070, d. 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 Brook, Relies of Irish Poetry (Dub., 1789), and Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy (Dub., 1831).
The brndisnm of Scotland may be conjectured to have been similar to that of Ireland; but nothing is certainly known of the subject beyond the fact that there were poets bards, of different degrees, in the highlands down to the 17th century.
The name of B. was unknown among the Germanic nations; though a corrupt read ing in some MSS. of the Germania of Tacitus (barditus for barites, the " war-cry") led Klopstock and others to write wild religious and war songs, which they called " bardits." under the notion that they were restoring a branch of the national literature. This Ossianie aberration soon came to an end.