Joris van der Paele

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Joris van der Paele (c. 1370–1443) was a churchman and a scribe who worked in the papal chancery, and later became a patron of the painter Jan van Eyck. He was born near Bruges into a family with strong clerical ties; his uncle and brother served at Saint Donatian's Church in Bruges. He started as a clerk in minor orders, was ordained subdeacon, but never rose to higher orders. In 1387 he became a prebendary of St Donatian's and was installed in 1388.

During the Western Schism, Bruges recognized Avignon as the pope, so in 1394 he lost his prebend. By 1396 he had joined the Roman chancery, and by 1409 he held prebends in Utrecht, Maastricht, Strasbourg, Cologne and Huy while continuing his papal work. In 1410 he was reappointed to a canonry at St Donatian. He began to retire in 1418 and from 1425 he lived permanently in Bruges. His health declined in 1432. From 1434 he worked on his church legacy, founding a chapel and commissioning Jan van Eyck to paint Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele. He was likely in his sixties and suffering from temporal arteritis when the painting began. In 1442 he founded a second chapel. He died in Bruges on 25 August 1443 and was buried in the chapel he had built at St Donatian.