The project was formulated by Professor Keith Brown of St Andrews University in 1996.
Funding was quickly approved by then-Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth and announced by then-Prime Minister John Major on 4 July 1996.
Under the general editorship of Professor Brown, the eleven-year project to complete the database created a work of around fifteen million words in size.
It includes parallel translations from the original Latin, Norman French, and Scots.
The primary editors of the text of each period were: The lead website developer was Swithun Crowe.