Ministers have unveiled “powerful” measures to address the worsening health crisis in Bo'ness. A protection zone has been established around the town and the government last night revealed that the police have been given full authority to arrest anyone suspected of breaking the local quarantine.

That might read like a press statement from a beleaguered agriculture minister issued in a desperate attempt to contain a new outbreak of bird flu or foot-and-mouth disease. In fact these are the instructions issued by a Scottish parliament forced to tackle the consequences of plague in West Lothian in 1645.

The measures are revealed in the Record of the Parliament of Scotland (RPS) an 11-year research project completed at the University of St Andrews. It involved 30 academic staff and has brought almost five centuries of Scottish parliamentary history into the public domain for the first time.

Civil libertarians be warned. The 17th-century agents of the law had full authority to “shoot and kill” any resident of Bo'ness who disobeyed them.

Developed to replace the written record of the parliament, last published in the 19th century, the database covers all the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament from its first surviving act of 1235 to the Act of Union. It provides a fully searchable digital archive, available online, at no charge, and was created at a cost of just over £1million. Gillian MacIntosh, an RPS research fellow, said that it was inevitable that some historians and members of the public would be drawn to dramatic events of the Parliament's history - such as its dissolution of 1707, or its deliberations during outbreaks of war or plague. However, she added that one of the most striking features of the record was how often more mundane subjects recurred over the centuries.

“Much of the business of parliament in the past would be familiar to anyone who listens to parliamentary debates today. MPs would legislate on everything from cutting down trees to common health issues; so much can seem everyday and humdrum, but that in itself is interesting,” said Dr MacIntosh.

A cursory search demonstrates that issues regarded by some commentators as peculiarly modern - such as standards in public life, binge drinking or road tolls - all have precedents.

Environmental issues are repeatedly addressed in the later 17th century, when Parliament legislated for the preservation and planting of trees to provide habitat for game, while the controversial topic of MPs' allowances was raised as early as 1428, when constituencies were ordered to pay their representatives' expenses.

Even the “credit crunch” is anticipated by 1597 legislation against “ockerers” - or, to give them their modern names, “banks” or “building societies”. Many ockerers, the parliament found, had imposed lending conditions “to the extreme ruin of the poor lieges”.

The St Andrews researchers believe that records such as these demonstrate the importance of the parliament as a cornerstone of national life.

“Far from being a rudimentary institution, parliament evolved rituals, procedures and a level of self-conscious awareness on a par with any other representative body of that age,” said Professor Keith Brown of the university's school of history.

The RPS offers an “unparalleled history of dialect usage from the late 14th Century until the early 18th Century,” he said. He predicted that it would be invaluable for language researchers.