Many of these words transferred during the Norman Conquest. During that time, England was ruled by French speakers. The upper class and nobility in England were French (and French speakers).

When someone in the upper class wanted boeuf, they wanted the meat of a cow - not the cow itself. And so beef entered the English language as the meat. This extended to other animals. In general, the word for the meat in English is the French word for the animal and the word for the animal is derived from the German word.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/beef and https://www.etymonline.com/word/cow

This also extended to the language law and things that the upper classes (rather than the commoners) dealt with. When the common English (germanic) did have to deal with those topics, they used the French words and those words were brought into English.