It made it possible, for the first time in post-Conquest English history, for landholders to determine who would inherit their land upon their death by permitting devise by will.

Prior to the enactment of this statute, land could be passed by descent only if and when the landholder had competent living relatives who survived him, and it was subject to the rules of primogeniture.

When a landholder died without any living relatives, his land would escheat to the Crown.

The statute was something of a political compromise between Henry VIII and English landowners, who were growing increasingly frustrated with primogeniture and royal control of land.

The Uniform Probate Code in the United States carries forward the two witness requirement of the Statute of Wills, at Section 2-502,[1] except that a document is valid as a holographic will, whether or not witnessed, if the signature and material portions of the document are in the testator's handwriting.