Spring 1.2 added many terse forms for configuring beans and their properties with less xml. One of the short-cuts is useful when setting a single bean into a collection property. The <list>...</list> element is optional in this case. An example: JAVA: class SomeBean { private Collection things; public void setThings(Collection things) { this.things = things; } } Spring: <bean class="SomeBean"> <property name="things"> <bean class="OtherBean"/> </property> </bean> See http://blog.arendsen.net/index.php/2005/07/09/spring-xml-way-simpler-since-12/ for a summary of changes. I've attached a screen shot as well.