In the town of Windsor Robert Shallow is a Justice of the Peace (a local judge). Shallow is also the uncle of Abraham Slender. Shakespeare’s names for these characters is intentionally meaningful and comical. The two are men of shallow thinking; they are men of slender thought.
Shallow is complaining to Sir Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson, about the poor treatment that he had received from Sir John Falstaff. Shallow specifically states his complaint later when he faces Falstaff in person: Shallow then says to him, “Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge” (93-94). The lodge refers to the house of his groundskeeper.
Shallow’s complaint, although dealt with comically in this play, refers to a very real and serious conflict that existed during the Renaissance – an unfair legal system. Aristocrats and Commoners were not treated as equals under the law. In any conflict between an aristocrat and a commoner, the system viewed the aristocrat as being in the right and the commoner as being in the wrong. Unscrupulous and financially strapped aristocrats at the time – symbolized by Falstaff in this play – took advantage of this double standard and often stole from commoners. And most commoners were well aware that complaining would not be of any use.