England and Sicily were conquered by the Normans around the same time in the 1060s and 1070s, and for a century + we had Norman kingdoms in both. Is there evidence that they had some kind of special relationship between them? The pointed arch appears in England before becoming an iconic element of French Gothic architecture, did the idea come from Norman Sicily? According to a book I was reading, food in early Norman England was more similar to Italian food of the same era than to the much closer northern French cuisine. Is this because Normans built a special trading and cultural relationship between the two kingdoms?