What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s Cambridge professorship beginning in 1954?

C.S. Lewis’s Cambridge professorship beginning in 1954 was titled Medieval and Renaissance English.

He became the first holder of the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The appointment followed his long period as a fellow and tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he had taught English literature since 1925.

The Cambridge chair matched Lewis’s scholarly interests. His academic work focused heavily on medieval and Renaissance literature, and he was an influential interpreter of texts from those periods. His book The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, examined medieval traditions of courtly love and helped establish his reputation as a literary scholar.

The two colleges are easy to confuse because both are named Magdalen, though Oxford uses “Magdalen” and Cambridge uses “Magdalene.” Lewis’s Cambridge post was at Magdalene College, while his earlier Oxford fellowship was at Magdalen College.