<p>Building on the fact that artists invest images with meaning though the materials they employ, this article advances a method of reading for a semantics of technique, arguing that artists’ skilled actions also generate signification. It re-interprets a late-twelfth-century Limoges champlevé enamel reliquary (London, Victoria &amp; Albert Museum, M.66-1997) as a case study for this method. One of the earliest representations of the death of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, the reliquary was likely commissioned by Benedict of Peterborough, an early advocate of Becket’s cult. Comparing a liturgy composed by Benedict in Becket’s honor to medieval texts recording artistic techniques, this article suggests the maker(s) of the Peterborough Châsse emphasized the manner of Becket’s death, ‘cut down’ by his murderers, by ‘cutting in,’ by engraving and incising the image of his body in copper. A semantics of technique thus uncovers an additional layer of meaning that links imagery to the technique which created it.</p>