When a fire ravaged a large part of Canterbury Cathedral in England shortly after the death of Thomas a Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, during the twelfth century, it was the Frenchman William of Sens (died 1180) who was commissioned to repair the structure. He brought with him the Gothic style of architecture that was popularized first in France and then spread quickly throughout Europe.

The exact date and location of William of Sens's birth are unrecorded, but he is associated with the town of Sens in northern central France on the Yonne River. Sens has a rich religious history as an uninterrupted archiepiscopal see (a cathedral town under the authority of an archbishop) from the eighth century until 1622, when the city became a separate archdiocese. In the early sixteenth century, it was a bastion of the Holy League, a union of three Catholic powers (Spain, Venice, and the Roman...