About the same time, by a certain stealth of the demon, a shameful stain was branded upon the religious prince. For when at Thessalonica a sedition had broken out, and a certain man of the military was killed by the onrush of the raging populace, the prince, inflamed by the atrocity of the sudden news, ordered the people to be invited to the games of the Circus, and the soldiers to be poured upon them unexpectedly and to be cut down everywhere—whoever met them—by the sword, and that vengeance be given not to justice but to fury. On account of this, when he was reproved by the priests of Italy, he acknowledged his fault, and confessing his guilt with tears, he performed public penance in the sight of the whole Church; and the time appointed for him in this he patiently fulfilled, apart from his royal eminence.
58:2
Quibusomnibusistudquoquemirabiliteradjecit: Legesanxitinposterum, utsententiaePrincipumsuperanimadversioneprolataeindiemtricesimumabexecutoribusdifferentur: quolocusmisericordiae, vel (sirestulisset) poenitentiaenonperiret.
To all these things he wondrously added this also: he sanctioned by law for the future that sentences of princes pronounced concerning capital punishment should be deferred by the executors to the thirtieth day, so that there might not perish a place for mercy, or (if the case should warrant it) for repentance.