The Nuremberg Twelve books were created as chronicles and books of the dead for brothers of two Nuremberg social foundations of the late Middle Ages.
In 1388, the wealthy merchant Konrad Mendel built a retirement home to house and feed twelve needy, old Nuremberg craftsmen. From 1425/26 every “Mendel brother” appeared in a full-page portrait in the Mendel house book. By 1806, when Nuremburg lost its status as an Imperial Free City, there were 857 illustrated pages with 765 illustrations craftsmen in folio format.
The diagrams show the brothers predominantly in the exercise of their craft, with distinctive production processes, typical tools, workshop equipment, materials and products. Early pictures give only the names and biographical data of the brother, but in later centuries short biographies were also included.
Mendel’s foundation model was copied in the early 16th century when the mining entrepreneur Matthew established a second Nuremberg “Twelve brothers house” with similar functions and a Memorial book to record the Landauer: the Landauersche Twelve Brother Foundation. This book was started in 1511 and includes 439 pages with 406 craft portraits.
These portraits are on-line, and are a wonderful resource, searchable by English subject, or by browsing through each of the books. They can be found at: http://www.nuernberger-hausbuecher.de/index.php?do=page&mo=8.
The books include several butchers with sausages:
Fridrich Plecher (died in 1467)
Hans Lengenfelder (died in 1436)
Although these were male foundations, it appears that women who provided services there were also memorialized. Under the category of köchin (female cook), there 27 portraits of women. One of them, Anna Mullner (1582), has sausages cooking on a spit or grill.
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