太廟祭祀兼具公私兩種屬性，一方面象徵著帝位傳承的合法性，另一方面又是皇帝和宗室祭祀祖先的一種方式，相對而言，前者顯得更為重要。唐至北宋時期，「公」的一面仍然是太廟祭祀的主要面相，但是「私」的因素不斷凸顯，並在相當程度上改造了太廟祭祀的面貌。太廟主管機構的轉移、主祭官員身分的限定、廟室中一帝一后形式的打破，以及祭品的變化說明，漢魏以來形成的太廟祭祀模式在這一時期發生了很大的改變，太廟祭祀表現皇帝和宗室追思緬懷祖先的功能得到了強化。這裏既有皇帝安撫宗室、增強宗室凝聚力的因素，也有如何更好地表達皇帝對祖先情感的考慮，凡此都體現了皇權的膨脹。在皇帝利用自身權力改造傳統禮制的過程中，不可避免地受到正統勢力的反對和抵制，使太廟祭祀的改革充滿了搖擺、折衷和妥協。儘管如此，這些變化的源頭，還是在於皇帝的情感需要以及背後的權力支撐在很大程度上超越了禮制傳統。

The imperial ancestral temple sacrifices principally symbolized the legal throne succession. At the same time, they acted as a kind of ancestor worship for emperors and royal clans. In the Tang and Northern Song Dynasties, especially in the late Northern Song, the private character of the sacrifices grew greatly. This article discusses this phenomenon by examining the institution responsible for the temple, the hosting officials of the sacrifices, the number of empresses enshrined and worshipped in each chapel, and the sacrificial offerings. Beginning from the reign period of Tang Xuanzong (唐玄宗), the imperial ancestor temple sacrifices were used to demonstrate the ancestor worship of emperors and royal clans to a great extent, though the expression of legal throne succession was still their main point. These changes were caused by the demand of appeasing the royal clans and consolidating their identification, and consideration of how to express the emperors’ personal feelings in a better way, which showed the expansion of monarchical power. Because of the resistance from those who held orthodox views on ritual, those changes in the imperial ancestor temple sacrifices were followed with wavering and negotiation. Anyway, the rise of the private side(character?) of the sacrifices originated from the emperors’ personal emotions and their expanding power, which went beyond the ritual tradition to a considerable extent.