When Lancelot saw that the other knight wanted to begin fighting anew, he did not wait for this man, driven mad by the sorrow Lancelot had caused him, to strike the first blow, but rather raised his sword and struck him on the head so violently that he knocked him down, stunned, to the ground. Then he sheathed his sword, seized the knight's helmet, pulled so hard that he broke the laces, tore it from his head, and began to beat him so violently with his own helmet that the knight thought he was going to die.

The Vulgate Cycle