Founded in 1298 during the Ostsiedlung in Brandenburg, the town was the site of death of the last Ascanian margrave in 1319, a center of the Waldensians movement in the 14th century, and the site of the conclusion of a Franco-Swedish alliance during the Thirty Years' War, which else virtually depopulated the town.
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Mieszko I, after winning the 972 Battle of Cedynia against the Saxon margrave Odo I, had annexed to the early Polish state the territory on which later the town was founded.
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Gottfried Benn (1886–1956) spent his childhood in the nearby village Sellin (now Zielin).