Increasing military and cultural contacts with the Muslim world, including <answer>the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily</answer> in 1090, the Crusades, beginning 1096, and the Islamic presence in Spain, may have influenced Medieval Europe's adoption of the pointed arch, although this hypothesis remains controversial. Certainly, in those parts of the Western Mediterranean subject to Islamic control or influence, rich regional variants arose, fusing Romanesque and later Gothic traditions with Islamic decorative forms, as seen, for example, in Monreale and Cefalù Cathedrals, the Alcázar of Seville, and Teruel Cathedral.
What event in the year 1090 could have had an effect on Medieval Europe's embracing of the pointed arch?
the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily