Dr Caroline Bowden is Research Fellow and Project Manager of the AHRC-funded project:  Who were the Nuns? A prosopographical study of the English convents in exile in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The project, based at Queen Mary University of London has received funding of over £500,000 for three years from September 2008 to study the membership of the convents and their supporting networks. During this period when it was illegal to establish a convent in England, twenty two convents were founded on the continent and around 4000 women were professed.

The convents became significant cultural centres, fostering the education of Catholic girls, making collections of books, commissioning works of art and maintaining substantial buildings. In spite of wars and natural disasters, sources revealing much about the importance of the members of these convents have survived. Findings will be published in the first instance on the project website which is already under construction.