diff --git a/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm b/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm
index 6fe9cda..c4079fd 100644
--- a/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm
+++ b/IkiWiki/Plugin/meta.pm
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ sub import {
 	hook(type => "needsbuild", id => "meta", call => \&needsbuild);
 	hook(type => "preprocess", id => "meta", call => \&preprocess, scan => 1);
 	hook(type => "pagetemplate", id => "meta", call => \&pagetemplate);
+	hook(type => "scan", id => "meta", call => \&scan);
 }
 
 sub getsetup () {
@@ -305,6 +306,17 @@ sub match {
 	}
 }
 
+sub scan() {
+	my %params = @_;
+	my $page = $params{page};
+	if($config{"meta_defaults"}) {
+		foreach my $default (@{$config{"meta_defaults"}}) {
+			preprocess(%$default, page => $page,
+				destpage => $page, preview => 0);
+		}
+	}
+}
+
 package IkiWiki::PageSpec;
 
 sub match_title ($$;@) {
diff --git a/IkiWiki/Setup.pm b/IkiWiki/Setup.pm
index 8a25ecc..e4d50c9 100644
--- a/IkiWiki/Setup.pm
+++ b/IkiWiki/Setup.pm
@@ -51,7 +51,13 @@ sub merge ($) {
 					$config{$c}=$setup{$c};
 				}
 				else {
-					$config{$c}=[map { IkiWiki::possibly_foolish_untaint($_) } @{$setup{$c}}]
+					$config{$c}=[map {
+						if(ref $_ eq 'HASH') {
+							$_
+						} else {
+							IkiWiki::possibly_foolish_untaint($_)
+						}
+					} @{$setup{$c}}];
 				}
 			}
 			elsif (ref $setup{$c} eq 'HASH') {
diff --git a/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn b/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn
index 000f461..8d34ee4 100644
--- a/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn
+++ b/doc/ikiwiki/directive/meta.mdwn
@@ -12,6 +12,16 @@ also specifies some additional sub-parameters.
 The field values are treated as HTML entity-escaped text, so you can include
 a quote in the text by writing `"` and so on.
 
+You can also define site-wide defaults for meta values by including them
+in your setup file. The key used is `meta_defaults` and the value is a list
+of hashes, one per meta directive. e.g.:
+
+	meta_defaults = [
+		{ copyright => "Copyright 2007 by Joey Hess" },
+		{ license   => "GPL v2+" },
+		{ link => "somepage", rel => "site entrypoint", },
+	],
+
 Supported fields:
 
 * title