In 1530, while at the Diet of Augsburg as one of Ansbach's theological advisors, the Crailsheim pastor Adam Weiβ recorded a dream in his diary. Weiβ presented the enigmatic ‘dream of a certain townsman’, whose vision of an ecclesiastical council was juxtaposed with the violent rages of Leo. Whether this is an allusion to pope Leo X is difficult to say; although the outcome of the dream, wherein Leo was finally overcome by ‘the old man who seemed to be sleeping’, is certainly redolent of Luther's early contest with and final victory over Catholic efforts to suppress him. For ultimately, as evangelical pastors like Weiβ were wont to point out, no setback would be so great as to prevent the triumph of God's word and the emergence of the Lutheran faith. And yet, for all their words of comfort, many reformers were also quick to admit that the Reformation had been slow to take root. Reform had not worked its way into the rural parishes; the Lutheran faith had not been embraced by the subject population. There seemed to be just as much opposition to religious change at the parish level as there was on the imperial stage. All of their efforts seemed in vain. Little wonder pious men like Adam Weiβ were suffering nightmares. For as this work has demonstrated, the Reformation in the rural parishes did not live up to the reformers' early expectations.

The evangelical faith was not introduced into the parishes at once; in the early years, pockets of resistance were matched against enclaves of reform. Only with the intervention of the margrave was real direction offered and a modicum of religious uniformity introduced.