diff --git a/render/box.c b/render/box.c
index 41f886e19..27a017930 100644
--- a/render/box.c
+++ b/render/box.c
@@ -1208,14 +1208,6 @@ void box_normalise_table_row(struct box *row,
 		if ((*row_span)[i] != 0)
 			(*row_span)[i]--;
 
-	/* if all columns have a rowspan, shrink it to the lowest equivalent */
-	min = (*row_span)[0];
-	for (i = 1; i != *table_columns; i++)
-		if ((*row_span)[i] < min)
-			min = (*row_span)[i];
-	for (i = 0; i != *table_columns; i++)
-		(*row_span)[i] -= min;
-
 	if (row->children == 0) {
 		LOG(("row->children == 0, removing"));
 		if (row->prev == 0)
diff --git a/render/layout.c b/render/layout.c
index 5153b8261..6b4368616 100644
--- a/render/layout.c
+++ b/render/layout.c
@@ -712,13 +712,6 @@ void layout_table(struct box * table, unsigned long width, struct box * cont,
 					row_span[i]--;
 				else
 					row_span_cell[i] = 0;
-			/* if all columns have a row span, shrink it to the lowest equivalent */
-			min = row_span[0];
-			for (i = 1; i != columns; i++)
-				if (row_span[i] < min)
-					min = row_span[i];
-			for (i = 0; i != columns; i++)
-				row_span[i] -= min;
 			/* row height is greatest excess of a cell which ends in this row */
 			for (i = 0; i != columns; i++)
 				if (row_span[i] == 0 && row_height < excess_y[i])