Which Cambridge chair did C.S. Lewis become the first professor to hold in 1954?

C.S. Lewis became the first professor to hold Cambridge’s chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature in 1954. The appointment established him at Cambridge after many years teaching English at Magdalen College, Oxford.

The chair was connected with Magdalene College, Cambridge, where Lewis continued his academic work in literary history. His scholarship covered medieval and Renaissance texts, including the intellectual and imaginative traditions that shaped English literature.

Lewis’s Cambridge appointment is sometimes mistaken for a general professorship in theology because of his influential Christian apologetics. He was not a theology professor. His professional academic field was English literature, and his literary scholarship included studies such as The Allegory of Love and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century.

Although he moved into the Cambridge position, Lewis retained strong ties to Oxford and continued living at The Kilns near Oxford. His academic career therefore crossed both universities, but the Cambridge chair marked a distinct and prestigious final phase of his teaching life.