A RARE legal manuscript, described as 'Scotland's first great law book' and once owned by the poet Alexander Hume, has been acquired by the country's oldest university.

The 450 year old manuscript, written entirely in Lowland Scots, has returned to St Andrews University after more than four centuries where it will be used for teaching and research.

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Known as the ‘Marchmont Manuscript' contains Regiam Majestatem, a collection of Scottish statutes and legal texts.

St Andrews already holds a copy of the manuscript in Latin and Scots, with the new addition allowing scholars to compare the two editions.

Professor John Hudson, a legal history expert at the university’s School of History, said: “Regiam Majestatem is Scotland’s first great law book. "Its significance is both legal and ideological. To add a vernacular manuscript of the work to the Latin one which the University already owns is therefore a very pleasing achievement for Scotland’s oldest university."

Dating from 1548, it was gifted to Hume by his maternal uncle, Alexander Hume of Manderston, in 1582.

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Signed and dated by Robert Ewyn on 18 October 1548, the collection bears the heraldic bookplate of Patrick Hume, first Earl of Marchmont and Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, 1702.

The poet and manuscript’s original owner, Alexander Hume, was a student at St Andrews and attended St Mary’s College, graduating with a Batchelor of Arts in 1574.

Book history specialist Dr Margaret Connolly, of the university’s School of English, said: “This sixteenth-century manuscript is about to enter a new phase of its working life.

"When it enters the library’s special collections it will be carefully looked after, but it will also once again be read by students under close supervision because we will use this manuscript in the teaching of early modern handwriting to postgraduate students in the Schools of English and History.

“The acquisition of a second copy of Regiam Majestatem in the Marchmont Manuscript now provides interesting opportunities for comparisons on many levels, both between the two physical manuscripts in terms of their script, format and layout, and also between their textual contents, since every handwritten copy of a text is unique.”

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The purchase, made at Bonhams in Edinburgh, was made possible through funding from the Friends of the National Libraries and two private donations.