This thesis explores how the idea of the 'New World' and many aspects of its identity were constructed in the late Middle Ages, and suggests that this involved the expansion of a number of colonial processes which were developed in Europe and the Near Atlantic. Chapter One explores the political dimension of systems and representations of knowledge and Chapter Two considers the darker side of the Western legal tradition. Chapter Three uses the history of the Franciscans, a religious Order with a unique doctrine of radical poverty, to suggest hidden dimensions of 'coloniality'. In Chapter Four, the Franciscans are used to reflect upon the meaning and function of property and rights, two discourses that have implications for colonialism and the European interpretation of the 'New World'. Chapter Five develops the history of the Franciscans in the Atlantic world 1300-1550 to challenge meta-narratives which are dominated by the politicised coordinate of 1492. 1492 has been symbolic of the start of the 'New World', a world of Modernity, capitalism, and colonialism. The significance of 1492 is unravelled by the Franciscan perspective, which transcends the colonised/coloniser binary and reveals the heterogeneity and complexity of European and Atlantic world identities. This historiographical process contributes to the school of anti-colonialism since it challenges the power dynamics of Eurocentricity from within. The final chapter, Chapter Six, reflects on existing interpretations of the relationship between the religious philosophies of the Hispanic Franciscans and the identity of the New World in light of the findings of the thesis. By exploring the interaction between space, ideas, politics and identities, this thesis aims to negotiate new approaches to intellectual and Atlantic world history, and new meanings of global history using the perspectives and agency of the late Middle Ages and the significance of Franciscan poverty.