diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index 23455420..cabaeb1f 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 - [pull #728] Fix XSS from zero-padded colon entities in link URLs (#726)
 - [pull #734] Fix empty list items being parsed as nested lists (#167)
 - [pull #735] Fix `smarty-pants` extra converting quotes inside inline HTML tags and comments (#150)
+- [pull #737] Fix XSS from code spans that the span gamut doesn't treat as code spans in safe mode (#726)
 
 
 ## python-markdown2 2.5.5
diff --git a/lib/markdown2.py b/lib/markdown2.py
index 2da6ff29..18419ef0 100755
--- a/lib/markdown2.py
+++ b/lib/markdown2.py
@@ -1448,10 +1448,17 @@ def _is_comment(token):
             return re.match(r'(<!--)(.*)(-->)', token)
 
         # protect raw code spans from processing, as they can often contain anything that looks like HTML and
-        # trips up the regex. These are encoded and processed later on anyway
+        # trips up the regex. These are encoded and processed later on anyway.
+        # The span gamut doesn't always agree that these are code spans
+        # (eg: a tag spanning lines changes how backticks pair up), so swap
+        # any `<` for a hash that unescapes to `&lt;`. Nothing in here can
+        # then come out as raw HTML (#726), and real code spans still only
+        # get escaped once.
         code_hashes = {}
+        lt_hash = _hash_text('&lt;')
+        self._code_table['&lt;'] = lt_hash
         text = self._code_span_re.sub(
-            lambda m: self._hash_span(m.string[m.start(): m.end()], code_hashes),
+            lambda m: self._hash_span(m.group(0).replace('<', lt_hash), code_hashes),
             text
         )
 
@@ -1736,7 +1743,8 @@ def _h_sub(self, match: re.Match[str]) -> str:
             n = min(n + demote_headers, 6)
         header_id_attr = ""
         if "header-ids" in self.extras:
-            header_id = self.header_id_from_text(header_group,
+            header_id = self.header_id_from_text(
+                self._unescape_special_chars(header_group),
                 self.extras["header-ids"].get('prefix'), n)
             if header_id:
                 header_id_attr = ' id="%s"' % header_id
@@ -3682,8 +3690,7 @@ def _code_block_with_lexer_sub(
         formatter_opts = self.md.extras['fenced-code-blocks'] or {}
 
         def unhash_code(codeblock):
-            for key, sanitized in list(self.md.html_spans.items()):
-                codeblock = codeblock.replace(key, sanitized)
+            codeblock = self.md._unhash_html_spans(codeblock, code=True)
             replacements = [
                 ("&amp;", "&"),
                 ("&lt;", "<"),
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.html b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d9db860b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.html
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+<div class="codehilite">
+<pre><span></span><code><span class="nb">print</span> <span class="err">`</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="err">`</span>
+</code></pre>
+</div>
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.opts b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.opts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d5258749
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.opts
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{'safe_mode': 'escape', 'extras': ['fenced-code-blocks']}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.tags b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.tags
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e2282d2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.tags
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+fenced-code-blocks pygments
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.text b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.text
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4131fbb8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/safe_mode_code_spans_in_fenced_code_with_lexer.text
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+```python
+print `a<b`
+```
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.html b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..42603252
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.html
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+<table>
+<thead>
+<tr>
+  <th>a</th>
+  <th>b</th>
+</tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+<tr>
+  <td>`x</td>
+  <td>&lt;svg onload=alert(origin)&gt;`</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.opts b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.opts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..3da78cd0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.opts
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"safe_mode": "escape", "extras": ["tables"]}
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.text b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.text
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..41e02416
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_in_tables_issue726.text
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+| a | b |
+|---|---|
+| `x | <svg onload=alert(origin)>` |
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.html b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..de01da01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.html
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+<p>&lt;x<img src="code&gt;&lt;a
+&gt;&lt;/code" alt="" />&gt;&lt;svg onload=alert(origin)<img src="code&gt;&lt;a
+&gt;&lt;/code" alt="" /></p>
+
+<p>Code spans still come out escaped once: <code>a&lt;b</code>, <code>&lt;b&gt;</code> and <code>C:\&lt;folder&gt;</code></p>
+
+<h1 id="header-with-ab-in-it">Header with <code>a&lt;b</code> in it</h1>
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.opts b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.opts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4cbd41b4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.opts
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"safe_mode": "escape", "extras": ["header-ids"]}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.text b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.text
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..11c6c16c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/tm-cases/xss_code_spans_issue726.text
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+<x![](`<a
+>`)><svg onload=alert(origin)![](`<a
+>`)
+
+Code spans still come out escaped once: `a<b`, `<b>` and `C:\<folder>`
+
+# Header with `a<b` in it