diff --git a/src/helma/framework/core/Application.java b/src/helma/framework/core/Application.java
index 120d4766..aaadc145 100644
--- a/src/helma/framework/core/Application.java
+++ b/src/helma/framework/core/Application.java
@@ -1319,6 +1319,10 @@ public final class Application
 	return starttime;
     }
 
+    public String getCharset () {
+    return props.getProperty ("charset", "ISO-8859-1");
+    }
+
     /**
      * Periodically called to log thread stats for this application
      */
diff --git a/src/helma/objectmodel/db/XmlDatabase.java b/src/helma/objectmodel/db/XmlDatabase.java
index a7cfec5c..4af079d3 100644
--- a/src/helma/objectmodel/db/XmlDatabase.java
+++ b/src/helma/objectmodel/db/XmlDatabase.java
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ public class XmlDatabase implements IDatabase {
 	// character encoding to use when writing files.
 	// use standard encoding by default.
 	private String encoding = null;
+	
 
 	public XmlDatabase (String dbHome, String dbFilename, NodeManager nmgr) throws DatabaseException {
 		this.dbHome = dbHome;
@@ -28,6 +29,7 @@ public class XmlDatabase implements IDatabase {
 		dbBaseDir = new File (dbHome);
 		if (!dbBaseDir.exists() && !dbBaseDir.mkdirs() )
 			throw new RuntimeException("Couldn't create DB-directory");
+		this.encoding = nmgr.app.getCharset ();
 	}
 
 	public void shutdown ()	 {   }