Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"A great number of cathedrals were built throughout Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries in the early Gothic style." In the following list of cathedrals, asterisks indicate beginning of construction, while other dates are of completion: Santiago de Compostela (1078); Angouleme (1105); Mainz (1137); (Norwich (1145); Chartres (1154). Brussels* (1220); Toledo* (1227); Cologne* (1248); Salisbury (1258); Amiens (1269); Westminster Abbey (1270); and Rheims (1311). [DK Timelines, p. 191] "Increasing military and cultural contacts with the Muslim world, including the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily in 1090, the Crusades (beginning 1096), and the Islamic presence in Spain, may have influenced Medieval Europe's adoption of the pointed arch . . . " [Wikipedia: Gothic Architecture] "Along with their high level of skill with technical drawings, the rules of proportion, and specific masonry techniques, the Muslim artisans offered a keen awareness of general geometric principles then unknown to the West." [Lyons: House of Wisdom, p. 116]