At which Cambridge college did C.S. Lewis hold a chair from 1954?

C.S. Lewis held a chair at Magdalene College, Cambridge, from 1954.

In 1954, Lewis became the first occupant of the Cambridge chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature. The chair was based at Magdalene College, where he continued his academic work after nearly three decades at Oxford’s Magdalen College.

The Cambridge appointment is notable because the college name is spelled “Magdalene,” with a final “e.” Oxford’s college is “Magdalen,” without that final letter. Lewis’s move therefore created an easily remembered distinction between the two stages of his academic career.

Lewis remained associated with Magdalene College until his death in 1963. His Cambridge years overlapped with the publication and growing influence of his fiction, apologetics, and literary criticism. The chair also reflected his standing as a major scholar of medieval and Renaissance English literature, not only as a popular religious writer.