I've recently watched some of the second season of Vikings, and the character of the king of Sussex has in his residence, a room full of roman antiques, at which he is amazed that a race of people of whom he knows so little could achieve such heights in the arts, which he could never reproduce. Was this view of the Romans as a kind of long lost, partially forgotten "super race" (problematic term I know) commonly held in dark age/pre-renaissance, especially in places which had been on the outer fringes of the empire?
Hello, I've answered this question before here.
Vikings is taking slight liberties here. Romanitas played a very important role in Anglo-Saxon political life; English leaders would have been very aware of who the Romans were and aping them whenever possible would have been a priority.