What academic field did C.S. Lewis’s Cambridge professorship specifically cover?

C.S. Lewis’s Cambridge professorship covered Medieval and Renaissance English.

In 1954, Lewis became the first holder of the chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The position marked a major change from his long academic career at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he had taught English since 1925.

Lewis was especially known as a literary historian and critic as well as a novelist and Christian apologist. His scholarly interests included medieval literature, Renaissance writing, allegory, and the history of English literary culture. His influential academic books include The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, published in 1954.

The Cambridge chair was not a theology professorship, even though Christianity shaped much of Lewis’s public reputation. Nor was it simply a general English post: its defined historical scope was Medieval and Renaissance English. Lewis held the Cambridge position until his death in 1963.