Three is the Magic Number

Close to the completion of my article on Radulph of Worcerster and William the Armless, I ran into a snag! My editor wanted a third case study.

Now, William and Radulph were not ordainary monks. These were fellows who cut off their own arms and legs at the elbow and knee, to avoid showing their stigmata. Not a common thing to do, really. Only the two of them had ever done it. But he wasn't having that, the editor.

"Two just won't do, you see," says he, "You need three."

"Why three?" say I. "I can't just invent someone. There were only two of them."

"You just need three. Three is a nice round number."

"No it isn't."

"Well, yes it is. It suggests that there were four or more, but that you are only talking about three. It suggests that this was part of a trend. Representative of a meme, part of the normal course of 13th-century life. Otherwise your paper is just about these two strange monks, and people might think that wasn't very relevant. I'm sorry, but there we are." He crosses his arms in an smug editorial fashion.

"But there were not four or more!" say I. "There were only two. And it was not representative of the norm! It was unique, an abberation. That is still relevant."

"Well, alright then, then you need a third example, of something else."

"Such as..?"

"Well, a different sort of person. As a counterbalance."

"You mean somebody who didn't cut off his arms and legs? That could be anybody. I still don't understand why I need three examples. Why is that better than two?"

"Well, listen, if you can't find a third example, you at least need something to locate your paper, historically. Something explaining that you are aware that these people you are writing about were abnormal, how they differed from the mainstream. See?"

"So, if I write you a paragraph explaining that most people in the 13th century did not go around cutting their arms and legs off, that will make my paper more relevant?"

"Yes. Precisely."

And that was the end of the conversation.

In the end, I wrote him a nice neat footnote, explaining that if the reader were interested in orthodox 13th-century monasticism, then he or she could read a fucking book about it. In the library, like everyone else.

In the note, I listed three basic textbooks on the subject (to show that I had in fact read four or more). He liked that, and wrote "v. good" in neat red ink.