조선시대의 국왕들 중 정통성이 결여된 왕들은 자신의 왕위계승에 대한 정당성을 인정받기 위하여 선대를 왕릉에 안장하고 신위를 종묘에 안치하여 국가적 享祀를 받들게 하는데 심혈을 기울였다. 태종도 무력으로 정권을 장악한 군주였다. 따라서 태종은 의도적으로 태조의 원비이자 자신의 친모인 청주 한씨를 신의왕태후로 추존하고, 그 무덤을 왕릉으로 조성하였으며, 태조와 함께 종묘에 부묘하였다. 그러나 태조의 계비이자 조선 최초의 왕비로서 왕후가 되지 못하고 생을 마감한 신덕왕후 강씨의 정릉은 천장하고 종묘에 들이지 않았다. 태종이 조성한 제릉이 조선 초 왕릉의 전범으로 자리매김한 것도 이러한 배종의 의도가 깔려있었기 때문이다. 태종은 제릉을 조성할 때 신도비를 세우거나 재궁을 영건하거나 능상 석물들을 조성하되 여느 왕과 왕비보다 훌륭하게 조영하였다. 이러한 시대적 상황을 바탕에 깔고 조성된 제릉의 여러 조형물들은 나릅대로의 역사적 의미를 갖고 있었다. 첫째, 태종이 조성한 제릉의 건물과 석물에는 전대에 유행하던 불교적 상징성이 여전히 두드러졌지만 유교적 색채도 가미되었다. 능침사찰이던 연경사는 신의왕후의 명복을 불법에 의탁하여 빌었을 뿐 아니라 왕릉을 수호하고 나아가 효를 실천할 수 있도록 배려하였다. 능침 주위 사대석물은 면석에 불교적인 금강저ㆍ금강령을 새겼고, 위쪽 인석에는 용머리를 배치하여 국왕의 위상을 부각시키고자 하였다. 장명등은 고려 말에 흔하던 사각 형태에서 승탑식 원당형의 육각 형태를 새롭게 채택하여 유교가 국사였음에도 불교에 경도되었던 조선 초기 왕실 불교의 일면을 반영하였다. 둘째, 제릉에 대한 국왕의 능행과 신도비의 조성은 왕권강화의 상징이었다. 태종은 1년에 한번 이상의 능행으로 신의왕후에 대한 효심을 널리 알렸고, 동시에 수만 명의 군사를 동원하여 수렵과 열병을 실시하여 자신의 위엄을 파시하였다. 우람한 빗돌을 아름답게 조각한 신도비에는 신의왕후의 공덕과 자신의 왕위계승을 정당화하는 내역을 새겨 당대는 물론 후대의 왕과 제신들이 숙지하게 하였다. 영조나 고종황제가 신도비를 중수한 것도 여기에 연유했던 것이다. 셋째, 제릉은 고려 왕릉의 기본 구조 위에 새로운 조형 요소를 도입하여 조선 초기 왕릉의 제도를 확립하는 데 전범이 된 왕릉이었다. 신덕왕후의 정릉은 고려 말 현ㆍ정릉의 전통을 계승한 데 비해, 제릉은 건원릉을 비롯한 조선 초기 왕릉의 양식에 영향을 끼쳤다. 신도비는 조선 초기 왕릉의 지표라 할 수 있는 기념비적 조형물이 되었고, 육각형태의 장명등은 고려 왕릉과 구별되는 두드러진 변화로서 적용되었으며, 사대석물의 문양은 불교적인 경향에서 유교적인 것으로 대체되고 있었다. 원간섭기부터 제작되기 시작한 석양ㆍ석호 및 교각복두를 쓴 문석인이나 갑주를 입은 무석인이 조선 초기에도 여전히 조성되었다. 그러나 과장된 형태를 줄이고 세부 문양을 취사선택하여 조선식으로 변형시킨 제릉의 양식적 특성은 이후 건원릉으로 전해 져 조선 왕릉 조성의 선례를 이루었다는 점에서 미술사적 의미가 있었다.
Joseon rulers who were not direct-line royal descendants had tombs befitting a monarch built for their biological parents and housed their memorial tablets inside Jongmyo, the royal shrine normally reserved to past kings, in an attempt to legitimize their succession to the throne. Royal tumuli and memorial tablets of these dead royals were, in other words, symbols essential for sustaining a ruler's legitimacy in Joseon. King Taejong, for instance, was a monarch who seized the throne by force. He posthumously bestowed the title of Queen Dowager Sinui on his late mother, who was the first wife of King Taejo, and had a tomb built for her in a style and size identical to a queen s tomb (her graveyard is known as "Jereung"). Her memorial tablet was housed inside Jongmyo, placed next to that of King Taejo. Meanwhile, Taejong ordered the tomb of his step mother, Queen Consort Sindeok to be relocated and barred her memorial tablet from being introduced to Jongmyo. It was, therefore, not by accident that Jereung, King Taejong's biological mother's tomb, became a classical example of an early-Joseon royal tumulus. King Taejong ordered the coffin and graveyard stone monuments and sculptures including stone steles to be made more elaborately and to look more grandiose than was the custom then. The many stone sculptures and monuments in Jereung, for this reason, are of particularly high historical significance. Firstly, the buildings and stone structures in Jereung, although they were still very much imbibed with Buddhist symbolism from previous eras, already exhibit Confucian characteristics. Yeongyeongsa, the Buddhist temple within the graveyard, was not only a place to pray for the soul of the dead royal lady, but also an edifice symbolizing King Taejong's filial devotion, whose role was to guard her tomb. The retaining stone slabs and the stone panels surrounding the tomb are carved with the image of a vajra grip and a vajra bell. The holding stone at the upper section bears the image of a dragon head to symbolize the prestige of the monarch. As for the stone lanterns, they are in a hexagonal shape, similar to the style of a stupa instead of the classical square shape that was popular since the late Goryeo Dynasty; a detail suggesting how Joseon's royal house in its early years was still steeped in Buddhism, even as it declared Confucianism as the ruling philosophy of the new kingdom. Secondly, the fact that the king personally paid visits to Jereung and that he ordered to have a memorial stele erected there was a gesture that cemented the monarchic authority of King Taejong. King Taejong visited Jereung at least once a year, thus reminding everyone in the kingdom of his filial piety toward his late mother. At each visit, he mobilized dozens of thousands of soldiers for a hunting trip and parade, to show off the prestige of the royal house. The large memorial stele, sculpted with brilliant motifs, had elegiac verses carved on its surface, praising the virtue of the late royal lady and legitimizing his succession to the throne. This gesture of King Taejong, aimed at permanently preserving the memory of his mother and imprinting the rightfulness of his reign in the minds of all, had repercussions in subsequent reigns in Joseon King Yeongjo and Emperor Gojong, for instance, looked after this stele and took care to see to necessary repairs and maintenance. Thirdly, Jereung, insofar as it adds new stylistic elements to the basic tomb architecture inherited from the Goryeo Dynasty, became an example for other burial mounds of subsequent generations. Jeungneung the tomb of Queen Consort Sindeok, for example, was built according to the traditional style of late Goryeo. Jereung, breaking out the mould of a classical Goryeo tomb, served as the prototype for many early Joseon royal tumuli. The memorial stele became the hallmark of a royal tomb of the early Joseon period, while the hexagonal stone lantern clearly distinguished Joseon burial mounds from their Goryeo counterparts. Sculptures on the retaining stone slabs, initially consisting mostly of Buddhist motifs, were later replaced gradually by Confucian motifs. Graveyard sculptures such as stone sheep, stone tigers and courtiers wearing square-shaped headdress and military officials in armor, which originate from the epoch when Goryeo rulers deferred to the Mongols following a peace treaty with the Yuan Dynasty, were continuously made into the early Joseon period. In Jereung, these stone sculptures had features that were less exaggerated than those of earlier sculptures of their type, and some of the surface motifs were simply dropped. These modifications, readapting the earlier tradition to the new society, became the norm for other tombs constructed later, such as Geonwonneung, the tomb of the first King Taejo.