The earliest evidence of settlement in the region dates from the 8th century BC: the inhabitants were apparently linked with the Lusatian and East Pomeranian cultures.

A village known alternately as Sarnkow, Sarnowitz, Sarnowicz or Czarnowicz is first mentioned in sources dating from the thirteenth century, when it was inhabited by the Kashubians.

In the 13th century the local monastery was granted various privileges including ownership of five nearby villages of Kartoszyno, Lubkowo, Odargowo, Świecino, Wierzchucino, what was confirmed by King of Poland Przemysł II in 1295 in Gdańsk.

In 1589 Kuyavian Bishop and royal secretary Hieronim Rozdrażewski granted the monastery to a female order of Benedictines from Chełmno,[3] who founded an abbey there in 1617.

The monastery was refounded in 1946 by a female order of Benedictines, resettled from Vilnius from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union in World War II.