Among the many model verses collected in Geoffrey of Vinsauf's popular compositional treatise the Poetria Nova (c. 1210), the longest addresses an unnamed pope, papa potens, on the subject of human disobedience. A rhetorical tour de force, the poem also presents a miniature lesson in governance. Geoffrey begins:

Geoffrey crafts these lines to showcase the rhetorical figures of distributio, licentia, diminutio and descriptio. In their concern with papal responsibility and judgement, however, they also echo the contentious arguments that divided the English Crown and papacy in the early decades of the thirteenth century, when Innocent III famously unsheathed the ‘sword's point’ of vengeance against King John in the form of interdict and excommunication. Geoffrey's treatise stages a delicate attempt at healing this rift: the book opens with a lavish dedication to Innocent and closes with an entreaty to this same pope to look forgivingly upon King John, who has recently become ‘the soldier of the cross and of Christ, and sword of the entire church’ (Et Crucis est factus et Christi miles et ensis / Totius Ecclesiae) (lines 2090–1). In proffering his ‘little book’ (libelli), Geoffrey hopes Innocent may also prove ‘receptive’ to John and ‘let him fare better in his role of suppliant’ (attamen esto / Flexilis, et sit ei melius ratione petentis) (lines 2098–9).