Float History
Parade floats were first introduced in the Middle Ages when churches used pageant wagons as movable scenery for passion plays. Artisan guilds were responsible for building the pageant wagons for their specified craft. The wagons were pulled throughout the town, most notably during Corpus Christi in which up to 48 wagons were used, one for each play in the Corpus Christi cycle.
They are so named because the first floats were decorated barges on the River Thames for the Lord Mayor's Show.
Read more about this topic: Float (parade)
Famous quotes containing the words float and/or history:
“Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom’s soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom’s banner streaming o’er us!”
—Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)