The museum noted that the butchers in Cologne were quite rebellious during the Middle Ages. They refused to sell meat by the weight and ignored many of the demands placed upon them by the authorities. The butchers held some significant power in the city, being one of the early guilds.
The set of sculptures in the above photo are from the city’s former meat hall. They were made after 1372 and there is a butcher on the left, then an ox led by a farmhand, a farmer and then the farmer’s wife dealing with the money. The Fleischhalle in which they were located was demolished in the early twentieth century, so that’s at least one building that the British didn’t bomb.