[1] The monastery buildings were repeatedly destroyed by pagan Prussians, Brandenburgers, Teutonic Knights, Hussites, Swedes, Russians, and the people of Gdańsk itself.

The Cistercians of Lesser Poland originated from Morimond in Burgundy (now in Champagne), and until the late Middle Ages, French and Italians predominated here.

[2] Without the orders – both in terms of secular and ecclesiastical authorities – the process of civilization and Christianization of the Polish territories would undoubtedly have proceeded much more slowly.

It also received several villages, including the one that the monks named: Olyva, ubi coenobium constructum est (English: Oliwa, where the community is being built).

At that time, the transept and the main body of the church were built, with a length of four bays of the current nave, as well as the first brick monastery buildings.

[2] However, the abbey flourished, and the generous donations of the dukes meant that by the end of the 13th century, the Oliwa Abbey owned 50 villages, a fishing station on the now practically nonexistent Zaspa Lake [pl] with a fleet of 40 boats, as well as exclusive rights to use the Strzyża stream [pl] and have mills on it,[12] not to mention tithes from tariffs and Gdańsk taverns: decimam etiam de omnibus tabernis.

For Mestwin's funeral, Przemysł II – the Duke of Greater Poland, who, under an earlier agreement, inherited power in Pomerania – came to Oliwa.

Eventually, Oliwa's disputes with the Teutonic Order ceased in 1342, when Grand Master Ludolf König von Wattzau recognized all the Cistercians' claims.

The Teutonic Knights imposed high taxes on the monastery's estates from 1401 to 1403 due to the escalating conflict with King Władysław II Jagiełło.

In 1433, Hussites led by Jan Čapek of Sány caused serious damage to the abbey and its estates, including burning down Sopot, but they did not capture Gdańsk, where the monks from Oliwa took refuge.

After 1525, the Pomeranian nobility, leaning towards the Reformation, began demanding that the Cistercians join the mendicant orders and leave the monastery, living on alms.

King Sigismund I the Old intervened on behalf of the Oliwa Cistercians, entrusting the protection of the abbey to Voivode Jerzy Bażyński [pl].

In 1540, the Gdańsk City Council decreed that the Oliwa monastery should support education, but the abbots cited low income as a reason not to comply.

The Oliwa Chronicle [pl] called Schlieff uneducated, disobedient, and wasteful of the abbey's wealth, which led to his removal from office in 1557.

In 1567, he regained royal favor, and in 1568, he reached an agreement with Mikołaj Locka, whereby he became the bishop coadjutor of the Oliwa abbey, a position that ensured succession after the death of the incumbent abbot.

[28] When Gdańsk rebelled against King Stephen Báthory's rule, Abbot Geschkau was already known as a supporter of the Commonwealth and had repeatedly angered the city.

The surviving walls of the monastery were to be demolished by the Gdańsk citizens, but relief arrived in the form of royal troops led by starosta Ernest Weiher [pl].

During his reign, the landed estates and properties seized ten years earlier by Kasper Geschkau were returned to the Carthusian Order.

[34] In 1635, King Władysław IV, papal nuncio Honoriusz Visconti, and French envoy d'Avaux visited Oliwa.

In 1677 and 1678, King John III Sobieski visited the abbey, residing there for several months while resolving disputes between the council and the guilds.

[38] When Karol Łoknicki passed away in 1683, King Sobieski appointed Michał Antoni Hacki [pl] as the abbot of Oliwa.

In the spring of 1698, King Augustus II, hosted by Abbot Hacki, visited Oliwa to inspect the site of the battle.

[40] During the reign of Abbot Hacki, the monumental Baroque main altar, which occupies the entire wall space and the vault of the eastern closure of the chancel, was erected in 1688.

The altar is probably the work of the Gdańsk architect and sculptor Andreas Schlüter, and the painting depicting Hacki and the monks praying to the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and St. Bernard was created in the workshop of Andrzej Stech.

[41] The old monastery treasury was also rebuilt to house the pharmacy, the abbey court, the priests' and church servants' apartments, and a printing press operating from 1673 to 1744.

During his tenure, the tower of the Church of St. James was rebuilt in 1709 – the year of a major plague that claimed the lives of hundreds of Oliwa residents.

During the siege of Gdańsk in 1734,[44] the abbey palace housed the Russian Field Marshal Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, sparing Oliwa from destruction, although other monastery properties suffered from the military actions.

However, this was to apply only to one candidate, Jacek Rybiński, as during his lifetime, the First Partition of Poland took place, and the Prussian occupier had no intention of respecting agreements made by Polish rulers.

Initially, the abbot ordered small organs from Father Johann Wulff [pl] (in the transept of the church), then sent him at his own expense to study under the best European masters.

[49] In 1793, Karol Hohenzollern leased the nearby Pachołek Hill [pl] (German: Karlsberg – named after the abbot) and built a scenic belvedere, later replaced by a stone observation tower.