Unlike the preceding volumes in this series, Law Reporting in Britain has a single, clear theme: the history and development of law reporting in Britain, from the earliest English reports of the second half of the 13th century to the beginnings of the reporting of planning decisions in the 20th century. Law reports are one of the main sources from which legal history is written. They record what lawyers and judges said in court in legal argument arising out of the facts of particular cases and how the judges decided the outcome of those cases. They thus provide vital evidence for what the lawyers and judges of the past believed to be the law of their day. They also demonstrate the ability of those lawyers and judges to shape and develop law through argument and decision-making in individual cases.