diff --git a/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/web/webmvc/mvc-config/enable.adoc b/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/web/webmvc/mvc-config/enable.adoc
index b5beda90a0..f8dde66576 100644
--- a/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/web/webmvc/mvc-config/enable.adoc
+++ b/framework-docs/modules/ROOT/pages/web/webmvc/mvc-config/enable.adoc
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ You can use the `@EnableWebMvc` annotation to enable MVC configuration with prog
 
 include-code::./WebConfiguration[tag=snippet,indent=0]
 
+WARNING: As of 7.0, support for the XML configuration namespace for Spring MVC has been deprecated.
+There are no plans yet for removing it completely but XML configuration will not be updated to follow
+the Java configuration model.
+
 NOTE: When using Spring Boot, you may want to use `@Configuration` classes of type `WebMvcConfigurer` but without `@EnableWebMvc` to keep Spring Boot MVC customizations. See more details in xref:web/webmvc/mvc-config/customize.adoc[the MVC Config API section] and in {spring-boot-docs-ref}/web/servlet.html#web.servlet.spring-mvc.auto-configuration[the dedicated Spring Boot documentation].
 
 The preceding example registers a number of Spring MVC
diff --git a/spring-webmvc/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/servlet/config/MvcNamespaceHandler.java b/spring-webmvc/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/servlet/config/MvcNamespaceHandler.java
index 8f08e691c8..b3630703ce 100644
--- a/spring-webmvc/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/servlet/config/MvcNamespaceHandler.java
+++ b/spring-webmvc/src/main/java/org/springframework/web/servlet/config/MvcNamespaceHandler.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2002-2021 the original author or authors.
+ * Copyright 2002-2024 the original author or authors.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -16,6 +16,9 @@
 
 package org.springframework.web.servlet.config;
 
+import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
+import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+
 import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.NamespaceHandler;
 import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.NamespaceHandlerSupport;
 
@@ -29,8 +32,11 @@ import org.springframework.beans.factory.xml.NamespaceHandlerSupport;
  */
 public class MvcNamespaceHandler extends NamespaceHandlerSupport {
 
+	private static final Log logger = LogFactory.getLog(MvcNamespaceHandler.class);
+
 	@Override
 	public void init() {
+		logger.warn("The XML configuration namespace for Spring MVC is deprecated, please use Java configuration instead.");
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("annotation-driven", new AnnotationDrivenBeanDefinitionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("default-servlet-handler", new DefaultServletHandlerBeanDefinitionParser());
 		registerBeanDefinitionParser("interceptors", new InterceptorsBeanDefinitionParser());