Somebody told me today that the Saxons used Roman coins as pendants. Is this true, and if so, how aware were these people of the Roman Empire?
Very!
I wrote an answer here that I hope you might find useful about Romanitas - the perception of "Roman-ness" and its centrality to early medieval English politics, which discusses things like the appropriation of Roman terminology, the restoration and re-use of Roman sites, and the occasional political use of Roman coinage designs.
I wrote another here that touched upon the degree to which Early Medieval English society was monetised and the extent to which that currency could be very tightly controlled.