C.S. Lewis became Cambridge’s first professor of medieval and Renaissance literature in 1954.
The appointment marked a major change in Lewis’s academic life. After nearly three decades teaching at Oxford’s Magdalen College, he moved to Cambridge University and took the newly established chair in the English Faculty. He held the position until his death in 1963.
Lewis’s scholarship focused strongly on older literature, especially medieval and Renaissance texts. His academic work included studies of allegory, courtly love, and the literary imagination, alongside his increasingly influential fiction and Christian apologetics.
The year is sometimes confused with 1955, when Lewis married Joy Davidman, or with 1963, the year he died. The Cambridge professorship was created specifically for medieval and Renaissance literature, making Lewis its inaugural holder rather than merely a later successor.