Did Feudal Japan have a group of people that were knowledge keepers and scholars, like the monks in Medieval Europe? Even better, was there a Feudal Japanese equivalent to the fictional Measters from the A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones series? Individuals who were knowledgeable in the sciences, history, medicine, etc.?
Just like in europe intellectuals would often be religious (or Confucian) scholars or scribes in service to the bakufu or minor lords. There are some interesting and unique cases though:
the Hayashi were a samurai clan of Confucian scholars that served as personal advisers to the Tokugawa shoguns from ~1600-1857); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayashi_clan_%28Confucian_scholars%29
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Sen no Rikyuu came from a merchant family, became a buddist monk, then a tea ceremony master, then tea master to Oda Nobunga, and then close confidant of Hideyoshi after Nobunga's death. (Later he did something to piss Hideyoshi off and was thus ordered to commit ritual suicide.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sen_no_Riky%C5%AB
http://historyofjapan.wordpress.com/tag/sen-no-rikyu
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Motoori Norinaga was one of the first scholars of Kokugaku, which shifted the focus of scholarly studies away from Chinese classics to Japanese studies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoori_Norinaga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokugaku
http://historyofjapan.wordpress.com/2014/06/28/episode-58-motoori-norinaga/
Note: the podcast links are created and produced by a Japanese studies PhD student.