diff --git a/moli-parser/src/xml.rs b/moli-parser/src/xml.rs
index be3592356c..976670ed19 100644
--- a/moli-parser/src/xml.rs
+++ b/moli-parser/src/xml.rs
@@ -37,6 +37,13 @@ impl XmlPrepassError {
         }
     }
 
+    fn before_document_element(detail: impl Into<String>) -> Self {
+        Self {
+            detail: detail.into(),
+            discard_partial_tree: true,
+        }
+    }
+
     fn namespace(detail: impl Into<String>) -> Self {
         Self {
             detail: detail.into(),
@@ -159,10 +166,12 @@ fn xml_element_stack_error(xml: &str) -> Option<XmlPrepassError> {
     let mut pending_declared_prefixes = Vec::new();
     let mut open_elements = Vec::new();
     let mut active_prefixes = HashMap::from([("xml".to_owned(), 1usize)]);
+    let mut saw_document_element = false;
 
     for token in XmlTokenizer::from(xml) {
         match token {
             Ok(XmlTokenizerToken::ElementStart { prefix, local, .. }) => {
+                saw_document_element = true;
                 let prefix = prefix.as_str();
                 if !prefix.is_empty() {
                     pending_used_prefixes.push(prefix.to_owned());
@@ -243,7 +252,17 @@ fn xml_element_stack_error(xml: &str) -> Option<XmlPrepassError> {
                 }
             },
             Ok(_) => {}
-            Err(error) => return Some(XmlPrepassError::tree(error.to_string())),
+            Err(error) => {
+                let detail = error.to_string();
+                return Some(if saw_document_element {
+                    XmlPrepassError::tree(detail)
+                } else {
+                    // xml5ever can recover a malformed prologue or doctype and
+                    // then expose nodes parsed after the error. DOMParser error
+                    // documents must not retain that recovered document tree.
+                    XmlPrepassError::before_document_element(detail)
+                });
+            }
         }
     }
 
@@ -801,6 +820,39 @@ mod tests {
         );
     }
 
+    #[test]
+    fn xml_parser_discards_recovered_tree_after_doctype_error() {
+        let url = Url::parse("https://example.test/doctype.xml").unwrap();
+        let invalid = XmlParser.parse(
+            url.clone(),
+            concat!(
+                "<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN\">",
+                "<html><div id=\"test\"/></html>"
+            )
+            .to_owned(),
+        );
+        assert!(!invalid.parse_errors().is_empty());
+        assert!(
+            invalid
+                .child_ids(invalid.document_node_id())
+                .all(|child| !invalid.node(child).is_some_and(Node::is_element))
+        );
+
+        for system_id in ["", "x"] {
+            let valid = XmlParser.parse(
+                url.clone(),
+                format!(
+                    "<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN\" \"{system_id}\"><html/>"
+                ),
+            );
+            assert!(
+                valid.parse_errors().is_empty(),
+                "system ID `{system_id}` should be accepted: {:?}",
+                valid.parse_errors()
+            );
+        }
+    }
+
     #[test]
     fn xml_parser_preserves_namespace_declarations_as_dom_attributes() {
         let dom = XmlParser.parse(
diff --git a/moli-renderer-v8/src/script_vm/tests/dom_xhr/dom.rs b/moli-renderer-v8/src/script_vm/tests/dom_xhr/dom.rs
index e1f779be21..df91d264a1 100644
--- a/moli-renderer-v8/src/script_vm/tests/dom_xhr/dom.rs
+++ b/moli-renderer-v8/src/script_vm/tests/dom_xhr/dom.rs
@@ -1764,6 +1764,35 @@ fn dom_parser_xml_errors_preserve_the_partial_document_root() {
     assert_eq!(result, "catalog|1|true|http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml|item|2");
 }
 
+#[test]
+fn dom_parser_rejects_public_doctype_without_system_literal() {
+    let mut vm = new_storage_test_vm("https://dom-parser-doctype.test/");
+
+    let result = vm
+        .eval(
+            r#"
+(() => {
+  const parser = new DOMParser();
+  const prefix = '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"';
+  const suffix = '><html><div id="test"/></html>';
+  const invalid = parser.parseFromString(prefix + suffix, 'application/xhtml+xml');
+  const emptySystemId = parser.parseFromString(prefix + ' ""' + suffix, 'application/xhtml+xml');
+  const quotedSystemId = parser.parseFromString(prefix + ' "x"' + suffix, 'application/xhtml+xml');
+
+  return [
+    invalid.getElementById('test') === null,
+    invalid.getElementsByTagName('parsererror').length === 1,
+    emptySystemId.getElementById('test') !== null,
+    quotedSystemId.getElementById('test') !== null
+  ].join('|');
+})()
+"#,
+        )
+        .expect("DOMParser doctype system ID validation should evaluate");
+
+    assert_eq!(result, "true|true|true|true");
+}
+
 #[test]
 fn xhtml_element_interface_survives_move_through_xml_document() {
     let mut vm = new_storage_test_vm("https://xhtml-xml-document-move.test/");