Ivar Bårdsson

Ívar Bárðarson was a fourteenth-century Norwegian clergyman. After the death of the Gardar bishop, he became the Catholic Church's official representative in Greenland. He is known primarily for his reports on the medieval Norse colonies. The reports covered the Eastern Settlement, church property, daily life, and perilous sailing routes. On an expedition to the more remote Western Settlement, Bárðarson found the colony abandoned, inhabited only by feral livestock. No original written reports have survived, but a sixteenth-century Danish translation has been preserved. Despite possible errors or interpolations, it remains valuable to historians. The translation is one of the few primary sources for life in medieval Greenland. During the 1360s, he returned to Norway and was appointed canon of Bergen Cathedral.