Elizabethan economic and social instability fueled Puritan moral scrutiny

Evidence

The mercantile expansion abroad, the progressively commercialized economy at home, the fabulous profits, the exciting adventure stories, and the class warfare all destabilized the social order in Elizabethan England, a social order being intensely scrutinized by the rising congregation of morally strict, hyper-dictating, pious Puritans. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 73