Jacobus de Kerle (Ypres 1531/1532 - Prague 7 January 1591) was a Flemish composer and organist of the late Renaissance.
De Kerle was trained at the monastery of St. Martin in Ypres, and held positions as a singer in Cambrai and choirmaster in Orvieto, where he also became organist and carillonneur.
Although he did not take part in their discussions, the performance of the Preces Speciales reportedly influenced the deliberations of the Council Fathers on sacred music.
[1] In 1565, he was appointed director of music at Ypres Cathedral, though he would lose this position after being excommunicated on March 30, 1567, due to a dispute with another priest and thus lost his office.
De Kerle did not make as much use of simple homophony and direct text-setting as did many of his post-Tridentine contemporaries, such as Palestrina and Vincenzo Ruffo, nor did he often employ the heavy chromaticism of the late 16th-century madrigal, and his compositions display a measure of restraint and clarity that mark them as heavily indebted to Northern contrapuntal practice.