Prof. Dr. iur. Andreas Thier, M. A.
Andreas Thier is a full professor of legal history, canon law, legal theory, ecclesiastical law and private law. From 2018 to 2025, he was a member of the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Law at UZH as Vice Dean Resources. Since 2025, he has been member of the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Law at UZH as Vice Dean. Appointed to Zurich in 2004, Andreas Thier has been University Professor (C 4) of Civil Law and German Legal History at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster since 2003.
In his research to date, Andreas Thier has primarily asked, from a historical perspective, how legal normativity and legal knowledge are created and implemented. This has always been linked to the question of how and in what forms changing formations of society, economy, political rule, and culture are intertwined with law and legal knowledge. Andreas Thier has given special importance to the history of tax and economic law, the history of ecclesiastical law, and historical comparative law. For some time he has been investigating the interactions between time, law and legal knowledge.
Research Interests
- Interrelations between law and its mediality
- Perception of temporal change in law in the Middle Ages and modern times
- Swiss and German legal history
- History of the European legal traditions
- History of tax, economic, monetary and regulatory law
Editorial boards and scientific associations
- Co-editor of the Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History, Canonistic Department
- Co-editor of forum historiae iuris, internet journal for legal history
- Co-editor of the Fundamenta Juridica. Contributions to basic research in jurisprudence
- Co-editor of the research on the history of ecclesiastical law (Research on ecclesiastical legal history)
- Member of the Prussian Historical Commission
- Member of the Association for Constitutional History
- Member of the Civil Law Teachers Association
- Member of the Working Group on Prussian History e.V.
- Member of the American Society for Legal History
- Member of the Board of Directors Stephan Kuttner Institute of Medieval Canon Law (New Haven, CT)
- Board member of ICMAC (Iuris Canonici Medii Aevi Consociatio / Society for Medieval Canon Law)
- Member of the Competence Center Medicine - Ethics - Law Helvetiae
- Member of International Society for the Study of Time
Offices and functions
- Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law
- Head of the Center for Legal History Research (UZH)
- President of the Commission UZH Interdisciplinary (UZH-i)
- Head of the Competence Center Zurich Medieval Studies
- Member of the steering committee of the Initiative Humanities of UZH and FU Berlin
- Leading lecturer of the Study Foundation of the German People