I'd appreciate it if you could help me
In the world we live in today, "forests" are something to protect and preserve. For medieval people, however, "forest" had a completely different meaning. For medieval people, forests were a source of firewood, timber for construction, fodder for livestock, honey, and other essentials of life, but they were also sacred places and unknown spaces.
For medieval people, the world was divided into unknown spaces (sacred spaces) and known spaces (secular spaces). Known spaces were places where people lived, such as houses, cities, and villages. Once you step out of a city or village, there is an unknown space. It was believed that the unknown space had immeasurable power, various forces that affect all human lives, and that happiness, misfortune, luck, bad luck, war, bad harvests, disasters, etc. all come from the unknown space. The forest was the unknown space closest to humans.
I am sorry if you are not familiar with Harry Potter, but to medieval people, the forest was exactly like the forbidden forest on the grounds of Hogwarts. It is a very scary place, pitch black and inhabited by mysterious things. You can hear wolves howling from time to time. To ward off disasters and "unknown" things coming from such a forest, an "artificial" bell in the church was rung.
Here, some of you who are reading this text may be thinking, "I have actually been to a forest or seen a forest on TV or on the Internet, and it wasn't scary at all, right?" Some of you may be thinking, "I have actually been to a forest or seen a forest on TV or the Internet, and it wasn't scary at all. However, the places that come to mind when we hear the word "forest" or have visited are not forests that have not been touched by humans, but forests that have been touched by humans. Forests that have not been touched by humans are called virgin forests.
In forests that have been modified by humans, the spacing between trees is adjusted and branches are cut so that sunlight can reach close to the ground. The trees themselves have been bred to grow straight so that they can be used easily as lumber. In contrast, virgin forests, which are untouched by human hands, are densely populated with trees with unlimited growth of branches and crooked trunks. These trees cover the sky, making it dark and eerie even during the daytime. The primeval forest was not a place where one would go out of one's way to refresh oneself, but a place where one would want to leave as soon as possible, as if it were a forest that had been tended by humans.
Incidentally, it is said that today in Japan there are less than 4% of the country's virgin forests that have been completely untouched by humans!
Later, Christianity gradually became stronger and the idea that the world is divided into unknown and known spaces disappeared. It does not recognize the existence of unknown space, but that space is one and all is for human beings. Until then, people had only used the forests to obtain the resources they needed for their daily lives, but after the spread of this idea, the forests were cut down excessively.
