diff --git a/AUTHORS b/AUTHORS
index 3da58d99..1900cc63 100644
--- a/AUTHORS
+++ b/AUTHORS
@@ -269,6 +269,9 @@ Jon Shapcott <eden@xibalba.demon.co.uk>
 John <martian202002@yahoo.com>
 	Tab browsing initial patch
 
+Johannes Stezenbach <js@sig21.net>
+	Precedence of HTTP vs. HTTP meta tag when setting Content-Type
+
 Johannes Zellner <johannes@zellner.org>
 	Minor misc hacking
 
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 76ced334..1b6741a6 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ To be released as 0.12pre6 or 0.12rc1.
 
 * major bug 764: Correctly initialize options on big-endian 64-bit
   systems.
+* bug 983: Give preference to the Content-Type specified in the HTTP
+  header over that specified via the HTML meta tag.
 
 Bugs that should be removed from NEWS before the 0.12.0 release:
 
diff --git a/src/document/renderer.c b/src/document/renderer.c
index 55c175c4..8dcd5d25 100644
--- a/src/document/renderer.c
+++ b/src/document/renderer.c
@@ -591,17 +591,14 @@ get_convert_table(unsigned char *head, int to_cp,
 
 	while (cp_index == -1) {
 		unsigned char *ct_charset;
-		unsigned char *meta;
+		/* scan_http_equiv() appends the meta http-equiv directives to
+		 * the protocol header before this function is called, but the
+		 * HTTP Content-Type header has precedence, so the HTTP header
+		 * will be used if it exists and the meta header is only used
+		 * as a fallback.  See bug 983.  */
 		unsigned char *a = parse_header(part, "Content-Type", &part);
 
 		if (!a) break;
-		/* Content type info from document meta header.
-		 * scan_http_equiv() appends the meta stuff to the protocol header before
-		 * this function is called. Last Content-Type header field is used. */
-
-		while ((meta = parse_header(part, "Content-Type", &part))) {
-			mem_free_set(&a, meta);
-		}
 
 		parse_header_param(a, "charset", &ct_charset);
 		if (ct_charset) {