The prestige and greatness of the far and wide citadels are being built up through the diligence of its citizens. The resistance in front of the time and hardships of all kind were assuring them nobleness and recognition. Many of the cities with historical age, after glorious epochs, are overwhelmed by the dust of forgetfulness and fall into ruin. Sibiu, the old citadel of the Saxon Hermann, still lives, digging through his men, the way to the future. A city with a rich history and a tradition specific to the medieval fortresses founded by the German colonists, Sibiu is the residence and the main polarization centre of the county.

Being first documentary testified under the name of Cibinium in 1191, the placement is named in a document from 1223 "Villa Hermanni", probably after the name of the leader of the first group of German colonists who arrived here, located on the shore of the river Cibin, next to the ancient Cedonia, first a Dacian and later a Dacian-Roman locality. A century later, in 1366, the locality is given the rank of a city and at the beginning of the next century the name of "Hermannstadt" was mentioned for the first time.

First a modest placement with rural and handicraft characteristics, but inhabited by steady and industrious men, evolving towards the model of occidental urban feudal centres, the old citadel became conspicuous in the history as an important political and administrative kernel - the capital of Transilvania and seat of the Austrian government - commercial and handicraft centre, having a rich cultural and religious life. Its commercial streetes, the passages and the promenade places, the main art and architecture monuments are placed in the three concentric squares which present the structure and the urban development of the citadel. The Little Square or Minor Circulus, as it was named in Latin documents from the 14th and 15th century, signified for a long time the kernel of the economic activity developed of well organized professional guilds - the handicraft guilds.

The legal basis for their establishing and development was offered by the decree given by Ludovic of Hungary in 1376, decree which contained the norms of organization and leadership of all the Saxon guilds from those Seven Chairs and especially of those from the Chair of Sibiu. A proof for this is given by the persistence of some representative buidings: The Advice Tower, The House of the Goldenmakers Guild, The House of the Furriers, The Halls of the Butchers - testimony of an intense handicraft and comercial activity. For the first time, in 1370 the buthcer's shops form the Small Square are mentioned in the old records of the church. It is the year of the first attestation of a towering edifice-The Butchers' Hall, the today's House of Arts. It is the beginning of an avocation which will build the tradition and the specificity of the place

Only six years later form this mention, the documents talk about the elaboration of some new guild statutes and specifiy the fact that there are 19 guilds in the city, including 25 trades, among them existing that of the butchers. At the beginning of the 15th century The Square of Sibiu was moved from the bottom of the City on the place of the today's Small Square. A few decades later there were built some arches with shops where the most representative guilds of the citadel were selling their products: tailors, furriors, shoemakers, silvermakers and goldmakers, and last but not least, the butcher masters.

In 1457, the gates of the city are allocated to the guilds with a protection purpose- Cisnadie Gate goes to the butchers' guild, standing as a proof for the fact that their guild was powerful, well off and well organized, capable of upkeeping a solid fortification system as a buckler against attackers. The Gate of the Tower was give to the tailors' guild, The Gate of the Salt Mine to the shoemakers' guild and the Elisabeth Gate was distributed to the furriers' guild.
In 1594 on the 27th of June, a thunderbolt transformed The Cisnadie Gate into ruins' the gate would be rebuild in the same year. The protection tower becomes a rich history of the past epochs, a witness of steadiness, of resistance in front of the numerous sieges organized by the Turks, Hungarian princes or lords of the Romanian Country; therewith it was the witness of laboriousness and efficiency of those who had built and protected it. The activity of the master butchers is always mentioned in the oficial papers. Thus, in 1694, the community of the city decides that the wall of the stronghold lying between the Butchers' and the Tower of the Salt should be upkept by the owners who had built their houses on the wall of the city.

In 1724 there were 34 guilds in Sibiu, a number that was permanently growing at one time with more and more various specializations/trades. In the 18th century following gatherings are mentioned: the joiners' gatherings, that of the carpenters', of the potters', of the furriers', of the clothiers' or of the coopers', the shoemakers', but also that of the buthcers', as having a secular history. Other similar institutions are hardly established- the trades of the tanners', of the ****, the hatters' or the ropers'. Starting with 18 May 1741 for the butchers from the surroundings of Sibiu, especially from Rasinari and Poplaca, in The Small Square there are arranged stands for the selling of the products, the demand of townsfolk getting bigger and bigger. In 1780 in Sibiu are working hundreds of craftsmen, great dabs, journeymen, apprentices, grouped in 40 guilds with well-limited production domains. After 2 decades 2 more guilds are added to the existing ones. The normative of the guilds from 1895 testifies the hardening of the journeymen regime, who had to be present at the Journeymen House as soon as they entered the city. The distribution at the workshops was made by "the father of the journeymen house ", the program strating at 6 o'clock in the morning and ending at 10 o' clock in the evening. For emergency workings, the working day could be prolonged (Strautiu Eugen, Sibiu 2000). 

 In 1875 the old guilds which had represendted for a long time the identity of Hermann's fortress, are abolished as a result of a ministerial order.
The history of over a half of a century of the old professional guild ends here. The artisanal guilds had become in the 19th century anachronous, representing, through their harsh rules, real obstacles on the way of the economic development. The craftsmen, the journeymen and the apprenticeship had continued thei activity in an independent way. But the recognized tradition of the butchers' of the Transylvanian fortress goes on.  

The economic branch undergoes the deepest changes during this epoch. As far as the food industry is concerned, in time there appeared some enterprisers who expanded their business. The archivistic funds testify - through the existence of some rich documentary information, statutes, rules - the existence of the butchery, as an old handicraft practiced from the medieval Transylvania. The formerly butchers had to supply fresh meat to the population, and if the products were old and addled, the merchants were punished with the payment of some huge sums of money and with the forfeit of the merchandise.
On the 1st of December 1888 the new slaughterhouse opens in Sibiu. The manufacturer of sausages Gustav Nussbacher, also from Sibiu, donates in 1905 the monument dedicated to Friedrich Schiller which will be put in the central area.