importance as an intercessor between the divine and members of the Christian faith. The concept of purgatory as an intermediary state that each soul had to pass through before admission to heaven was at its height. Prayer was the most obvious means of decreasing time in limbo, while the wealthy could commission new churches, extensions to existing ones, or devotional portraits. At the same time, there was a trend towards the sponsorship of requiem masses, often as part of the terms of a will, a practice that Joris van der Paele actively sponsored. With this income he endowed the churches with embroidered cloths and metal accessories such as chalices, plates and candlesticks. Eyck usually gives Mary three roles: Mother of Christ; the personification of the "Ecclesia Triumphans"; or Queen of Heaven. The idea of Mary as a metaphor for the Church itself is especially strong in his later paintings. In Madonna in the Church she dominates the cathedral; her head is almost level with the approximately sixty feet high gallery. Art historian Otto Pächt describes the interior of the panel as a "throne room" which envelops her as if a "carrying case". This distortion of scale is found in a number of other of his Madonna paintings, including Annunciation. Her monumental stature borrows from the works of 12th- and 13th-century Italian artists such as Cimabue and Giotto, who in turn reflect a tradition reaching back to an Italo-Byzantine type and emphasises her identification with the cathedral itself. Art historians in the 19th century thought the work was executed early in van Eyck's career and attributed her scale as the mistake of a relatively immature painter. The idea that her size represents her embodiment as the church was first suggested by Erwin Panofsky in 1941. Till-Holger Borchert says that van Eyck did not paint "the Madonna in a church", but as "the Church". Van Eyck's later works contain very precise and detailed architectural details, but are not modeled on actual historical buildings. He probably sought to create an ideal and perfect space for Mary's apparition, and was more concerned with their visual impact rather than physical possibility. The Marian paintings are characterized by complex depictions of both physical space and light sources. Many of van Eyck's religious works contain a reduced interior space that is nonetheless subtly managed and arranged to convey a sense of intimacy without feeling constricted. The Madonna