Natural VII Chord: the use of ♮VII

In minor keys, particularly in Baroque-era music, ♮VII (major chord) usually moves to the V or V7 chord. As in the example below, we can see that the root of the VII chord can combine with the raised third of the V chord (because of harmonic minor), and together with the root of the tonic chord forms a chain of three semitone movements.

In addition, the third and fifth of ♮VII itself happen to share two common tones with the V chord.