Lady Margaret Beaufort and her Professors of Divinity at Cambridge

Three leading scholars examine one of the oldest professorships, the Lady Margaret's Chair of Divinity at Cambridge, plotting its development in the context of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history. The current Lady Margaret's Professor Graham Stanton sets the scene with an introduction briefly considering theology at Cambridge before 1502 and after 1649. In the two main chapters (delivered as lectures in March 2002 to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of the Chair) Richard Rex - an authority on John Fisher, first holder of the Chair - deploys new evidence to propose changes in the list of early professors (including the removal of Erasmus's name) and shows how their appointment and dismissal reflected the vagaries of the Reformation; and Patrick Collinson investigates how the Elizabethan and early Stuart professors continued to be caught up in the religious and political turmoil of the times. There is a complete list of holders from 1502 to the present.

• The story of one of the world's oldest professorships
• Of interest beyond Cambridge to scholars and students of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history
• Erudite but readable and entertaining account by leading scholars