At which university did C.S. Lewis become the first professor of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature?

C.S. Lewis became the first professor of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at the University of Cambridge. He took the Cambridge chair in 1954 after nearly three decades teaching at Oxford.

The appointment was created specifically for the study of English literature from the medieval and Renaissance periods. Lewis’s scholarship in those fields was well established through works such as The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, published in 1954.

At Cambridge, Lewis was associated with Magdalene College, Cambridge, which is distinct from Magdalen College, Oxford. The similar names are a frequent source of confusion. His Oxford college used “Magdalen” without a final e, while the Cambridge college is “Magdalene.”

Lewis continued writing and teaching at Cambridge until his death in 1963. He did not abandon Oxford entirely: he retained long-standing friendships there, and his earlier Oxford career remained the setting for much of his intellectual development.