 Along with the renewal of the civil war in 1352, these factors destroyed any chance of even a modest recovery similar to that experienced under Andronikos III. Thereafter, Byzantium remained under the menacing threat of stronger neighbours, unable to pursue an independent foreign policy, handicapped by a shortage of resources and riven by internal strife. Nevertheless, through a combination of fortuitous external circumstances and adroit diplomacy, it survived for another century, until finally conquered by the Ottomans in 1453. Only the Byzantine exclave in the Morea remained prosperous, having been spared the ravages of the civil war because of its relative isolation. The appointment of Manuel Kantakouzenos as its despotes in 1349 heralded the creation of the semi-independent Despotate of the Morea, which experienced the last economic and cultural flowering of the Byzantine world before it too fell to the Ottomans in 1460.
